NUMERICAL DESIGN OF EFFICIENT SLOTTED FIN SURFACE BASED ON THE FIELD SYNERGY PRINCIPLE

In this article, a numerical investigation of the flow and heat transfer in a three-row finned-tube heat exchanger is conducted with a three-dimensional laminar conjugated model. Four types of fin surfaces are studied; one is the whole plain plate fin, and the other three are of slotted type, called slit 1, slit 2, and slit 3. All four fin surfaces have the same global geometry dimensions. The three slotted fin surfaces have the same numbers of strips, which protrude upward and downward alternatively and are positioned along the flow direction according to the rule of “front coarse and rear dense.” The difference in the three slotted fins is in the degree of “coarse” and “dense” along the flow direction. Numerical results show that, compared to the plain plate fin, the three types of slotted fin all have very good heat transfer performance in that the percentage increase in heat transfer is higher than that in the friction factor. Among the three slotted fin surfaces, slit 1 behaves the best, followed by ...