Simulation of fin and tube heat exchanger and validation with CFD analysis

Abstract

Heat exchangers plays significant role in engineering because they transfer heat between two different flow streams and temperatures. There are various designs of heat exchangers based on construction, size, direction of fluid flows. Amongst, industries including oil & gas, power generation, marine, and HVAC&R has the most prevalent application for fin and tube heat exchangers in the broad range. Proper analysis is required prior to the selection of suitable application-specific heat exchanger with good heat transfer characteristics. In the present work, Fin and Tube heat exchanger has been considered for the analysis using ANSYS2021 Fluent. The same model has been simulated and compared with MATLAB Simulink. Variation of heat transfer parameters such as fin side heat transfer coefficients and fin efficiency with mass flow rates and geometric parameters have been observed. Results obtained from the CFD analysis have been validated with mathematical simulation and the reasons for variations in result have been identified and discussed. Some of inferences obtained with both the works has been discussed.