Application of Combined Enhanced Techniques for Design of Highly Efficient Air Heat Transfer Surface

In order to reduce the size and cost of heat exchangers, an air-side wavy fin-and-tube heat transfer surface with three-row tubes needs to be replaced by two-row tubes with some appropriate enhancing techniques. The major purpose of the present paper is to search for such new structure by numerical simulation. First, longitudinal vortex generators of Delta-winglet type are tried. The influence of number and of arrangement of the winglets on the performance of the heat transfer surface is studied in detail. The numerical results show that the fin with two winglets aligned spanwise in the front and rear of each tube (Fin W6) has higher heat transfer capability than other enhanced structures with vortex generators, but it still unable to meet the heat transfer requirement. Then a combination design of the longitudinal vortex generator with slotted protruding parallel strips is proposed and different variations of their arrangement are tried. Finally we come to such a combination (C3), which is based on Fin W6 with additional eight protruding strips situated at five positions (grouped by 1, 2, 2, 2, and 1) along the flow direction. Fin C3 can satisfy the requirements for heat transfer rate of the original wavy fin of three-row tubes with a mild increase in pressure drop, and its volume and material reduce to about 67% of the original one.