Numerical Investigation on Air Side Performance of Fin-and-Tube Heat Exchangers With Large Diameter Tubes and Large Number of Tube Rows

Abstract

In the present study, air-side turbulent heat transfer and friction characteristics of fin-and-tube heat exchangers with a large number of tube rows and large diameter of tubes are investigated numerically. Finite Volume Method based CFD software, Ansys CFX, was used as the 3-D Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes Solver. A k-ω based Shear-Stress-Transport (SST) model was used to predict the turbulent flow and heat transfer through the fin-and-tube heat exchanger coil. The effects of parameters such as Reynolds number, the number of tube rows, tube diameter, tube pitches and fin pitch are examined. In the end, correlations for the Nusselt number and friction factor which applicable to fin-and-tube heat exchangers with large number of large-diameter tube rows are proposed.