Heat transfer and pressure drop correlations for finned plate ceramic heat exchangers

•Heat transfer and pressure drop correlations obtained for finned plate ceramic heat exchanger.•Heat transfer and pressure drop correlations include geometrical influence.•Correlations were validated with experiments.•Heat transfer is enhanced by horseshoe vortex.

The use of ceramic materials is a good option to build heat exchangers for high temperature applications when cost is a concern. This work presents heat transfer and pressure drop correlations for one finned plate heat exchanger evaluated using CFD (Computational fluid dynamics) simulations. One adequate turbulence model was used to include transitional Reynolds number range. The influence of geometrical parameters is included into the correlations, following the same approach commonly used for offset strip fins heat exchangers. For validation purposes, the CFD results are compared to experiments for one particular geometrical configuration. The resultant correlations for the high temperature heat exchanger could be used for optimization purposes, considering possible applications. Analysis of simulation results revealed significant heat transfer enhancement produced by a horseshoe vortex formed in the frontal part of the fins.