Numerical analysis of the flow and heat transfer characteristics for forced convection-radiation in entrance region of an internally finned tubes

Abstract

The flow and heat transfer characteristics of combined forced convection and radiation in the entrance region of internally finned tubes are investigated numerically in this paper. The uniform flow is considered for an inlet flow condition. A three dimensional parabolic problem is solved by a marching-type procedure envolving a series of two dimensional elliptic problems in the cross-stream plane. The SIMPLER-algorithm and Raithby's pressure-velocity coupling method are employed to analyze the flow and heat transfer characteristics. For the calculation of radiative heat transfer, the P1-approximation and the weighted sum of gray gases method (WSGGM) are used. The effects of fin height, number of fins, optical thickness, reference temperature, and Planck number on the flow and heat transfer characteristics are examined. It was found that the effect of fin-height on the heat transfer characteristic is more dominant than that of number of fins. The present results show that the optimal non-dimensional fin height and number of fins are 0.4 and 16, respectively.