Study on Free Convection Heat Transfer in a Finned Tube Array

Abstract

We have been developing a free convection air cooled heat exchanger without power supply to improve economic efficiency and mechanical reliability. However, this heat exchanger requires a larger installation area than the forced draft type air cooled heat exchanger since a large heating surface is needed to compensate for the small heat transfer by natural convection. Therefore, we have been investigating a heat exchanger consisting of an array of finned tubes and chimney to increase the heat transfer coefficient. Since the heat transfer characteristics of finned tube arrays have not been clarified, we conducted experiments with a finned tube array to determine the relation between the configuration of finned tubes and the heat transfer coefficient of a tube array. The results showed that the average heat transfer coefficient increased with pitch in the vertical direction, and became constant when the pitch was over five times the fin diameter. The average heat transfer coefficient was about 1.4 times higher than that of a single finned tube in free space. The ratio of the average heat transfer coefficient of the finned tube array with chimney to that of a single finned tube was found to be independent of the difference in temperature between the tube surface and air.