Airside Thermal Performance of Louvered Fin Flat-Tube Heat Exchangers with Different Redirection Louvers

Arslan Saleem and Man-Hoe Kim ()
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Arslan Saleem: School of Engineering, Cardiff University, Queen’s Buildings, The Parade, Cardiff CF24 3AA, UK
Man-Hoe Kim: School of Mechanical Engineering & IEDT, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Korea

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 16, 1-21

Abstract: The performance of heat exchangers is severely limited by airside thermal resistance. The effect of redirection louvers (RLs) on the airside thermal performance of a compact flat-tube louvered fin heat exchanger was investigated. A steady-state 3D numerical analysis was conducted for different fin configurations by varying the number of RLs ( N RL = 1, 2, 3, and 5). Conjugate heat transfer analysis was performed at the low Re (50–450) for domestic and transport air-conditioning applications. Geometric parameters such as louver pitch, louver angle, fin pitch, and flow depth were set as 1.7 mm, 27°, 1.2 mm, and 20 mm, respectively. The effective heat transfer fin surface areas of different fin configurations were also kept identical for a comparative analysis. The influence of the RLs on the airside thermal–hydraulic performance was analysed by exploring the local and average Nusselt numbers, pressure drop, Colburn j factor, friction factor f , performance evaluation criteria (PEC), and flow efficiency of different fin configurations. The numerical results revealed that the asymmetric fin configuration with two RLs ( N RL = 2) showed the best heat transfer performance for the entire Re range. It resulted in a 33% higher average Nusselt number, causing a 24% higher pressure drop compared to N R L = 5 . At low flow velocities (Re < 75), N RL = 3 showed better PEC; however, at high flow velocities (Re > 75), N RL = 1 outperformed other fin configurations. Finally, it was noted that increasing the number of RLs reduced the amplitude of the wavy-shaped flow formed between the neighbouring louvered fin, consequently deteriorating the flow efficiency.

Keywords: heat exchanger; louver fin; RL; Colburn j factor; friction factor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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