Correlation and Numerical Study of Heat Transfer for Single Row Cross-flow Heat Exchangers with Different Fin Thickness

Efficiency of heat exchanger and its dimensions are ones of the most important parameters to consider in engineering design activity. The size of heat exchanger can be more compact by introducing the fins to increase the heat transfer rate between the heat exchanger surface and the surroundings. Different engineering methods are used in heat exchanger design process. The proper correlations or modeling and simulation tools are often applied to receive the general recommendation at early stages of exchanger study. The paper investigates the accuracy of air-side correlations for a cross flow heat exchanger. Then, numerical model is applied for heat transfer investigation in modified fin designs. The performance of the fin-tube heat exchanger for different fin thickness is calculated. To give indications about the accuracy of numerical outcome, the most popular correlations are evaluated and results obtained from Ansys CFX program are verified. Analyzing the output, it seems that the implementation of the CFD model offers particular benefits especially when minor modification are applied to the fin surface for which the correlation equations are not defined.