A new methodology for determination of an optimum fin shape under dehumidifying conditions

For the analytical solution of a wet fin equation, a relationship between humidity ratio and temperature of the saturation air is necessary. A linearity of this relationship instead of the actual one was chosen by many researchers for the ease of analysis of fins for a specified geometric fin. This aforementioned linear relation does not satisfy in actual case and it can be correlated by humidity ratio as a polynomial function with temperature. In this work, an exercise is devoted to determine the optimum fin profile for both fully and partially wet longitudinal fins with a nonlinear saturation curve. For this establishment, temperature distribution in the fin can be expressed by a class of power law. From the optimization analysis, an optimality criterion is setup individually for the fully and partially wet surface conditions. The optimum fin profile and design variables have been determined as a function of thermo-psychrometric parameters.