Abstract
This paper presents the numerical analysis on the impact of combined U-shaped rib and semi-circular rib on heat transfer augmentation of flat plate solar air heater system.The analysis is done using the ANSYS Fluent software for various flow Reynolds number ranging from 8000 to 17000. The ribs are placed alternately on the underside of heated plate for a fixed stream-wise pitch of 35mm. The rib height is so chosen that the diameter of semi-circular rib equals the rib height of U-shaped rib. The rib height (e) is varied as 2mm, 3mm and 4mm. The analysis reveals that the combined ribs augment the heat transfer to a maximum extent of about 1.67 times as compared to the smooth duct. Ribs of greater height are found to produce greater enhancement in heat transfer due to increased flow mixing effect. The friction factor is found to increase with rib height and the highest increase is found to be about 1.73 times as compared to smooth duct for Re=8000.
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