Numerical study of the effect of a thin wire on the thermohydraulic performance in a plate fin-and-tube heat exchanger

Abstract

A numerical study on the effect of a wire on the thermohydraulic performance in a plate-and-tube heat exchanger is performed with the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations approach. The heat exchanger is represented by a small finned tube bank with the implementation of periodic boundary conditions and symmetry conditions. The simulation models the turbulence with the Shear-Stress Transport model (SST k-ω). A benchmark case (without thin wire) is validated with PIV measurements of the horseshoe vortex and semi-empirical correlations for heat transfer. Then, twenty-four simulations are conducted at different dimensionless distances (1.0, 1.2, and 1.4) and angles (0, 15, 30, and 45°) of a thin wire. Predictions show that vortical structures around the thin wire contribute to an increase in thermohydraulic performance if the recirculation zones caused by thin wire do not affect the airflow patterns generated by finned tubes. However, the thermohydraulic performance decreases if airflow patterns are affected by the thin wire. Therefore, thin wire located at a dimensionless distance of 1.2 and angle of 15° generates a 5–6 % profit on the thermohydraulic performance with a pressure drop up to 73 Pa for Re = 2100.