Experimental Investigation of Thermal and Hydraulic Characteristics of Finned Flat Tubes of the Oil Air Cooling Device

Abstract

Air cooling devices are heat exchange units that are widely used in practice. However, they have a number of disadvantages due to the low value of the heat transfer coefficient from the air and the high resistance of finned tube bundles, which leads to large dimensions and the metal content of the device itself, to the need to develop a high power ventilator drive, but also to the need to demonstrate reduced energy efficiency. The objective of the present work is to determine optimal geometric sizes of finned flat heat exchange tubes manufactured by the techniques of extrusion and deforming cutting that reduce the weight and size characteristics of the heat exchange section of air cooling devices. The experimental studies of seven various samples of heat exchange sections, being different in fin pitch and height, tube section width, flat tube height and a number of inner channels, have determined the performance of each section with the use of the following criteria: thermal power, thermal efficiency, specific thermal heat transfer resistance, M. V. Kirpichev and V. M. Antuf’ev’s criteria. The obtained experimental data and the analysis of the passive method of enhancement in the near-wall area of the heat transfer surface finned by deforming cutting has shown that sample No 5 has maximum value of the performance criteria when the maximum height of a fin is 0.008 m and the minimum pitch of a fin is 0.0025 m over the investigated sample range. Thus, when the sizes of an oil air cooling device are maintained by using the amended heat transfer section of sample No 5, the amount of removed heat can be increased or the mass and dimensions of the device can be decreased while maintaining thermal power and, as a result, the power consumption for pumping can be decreased and the thermal-hydraulic performance of the device as a whole can be increased.