Computational investigation of cross flow heat exchanger: A study for performance enhancement using spherical dimples on fin surface

Abstract

Performance improvement of a heat exchanger is a vast topic for research work right now. This paper presents a numerical analysis of cross flow heat exchanger using CFD software package ANSYS FLUENT. To improve the performance of a traditional smooth fined heat exchanger, dimples are used on the fin surfaces. A cross flow heat exchanger with spherical dimples on the surfaces of the fins was modelled and effect of dimples on the performance of the heat exchanger was numerically investigated. Numerical investigations were carried out for different dimple depths such as 3 mm, 4 mm, 5 mm, 5.5 mm dimples on different positions such as on one side, on both side; and different number of dimples such as 32, 26, 20. Boundary conditions were considered as constant tube outer surface temperature, Reynolds number of 3553, inlet air temperature Ti = 299.45 K. Considering balance between heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop, performance evaluation criterion (PEC) was estimated to observe the optimal result. PEC value greater than 1 means there is better performance in consideration of both heat transfer rate and frictional loss. The case of 26 dimples on both sides of fin with 5.5 mm dimple depth provides highest 7.33 % increases of Nusselt number compared to smooth fin. The maximum PEC value 1.034 was found for the case of 32 dimples on both side of fin with 3 mm dimple depth. From the PEC analysis, it was observed that the case of 32 dimples on both sides of the fin with 3 mm dimple depth is the optimum case among all other cases with 5.71 % higher Nu and 6.75 % higher friction factor than smooth fin. To compare the heat exchanger performance, temperature effectiveness has also been evaluated. The case of 32 dimples and 26 dimples on both side of fin with 5.5 mm dimple depth have same and highest value of temperature effectiveness which is 11.45 %, where that value for smooth fin is 10.16 %. Furthermore, the results have been analyzed with the variation of Reynolds numbers.