Determination of heat transfer formulas for gas flow in fin-and-tube heat exchanger with oval tubes using CFD simulations

•Experimental and numerical methods for determination of the gas-side heat transfer coefficient.•Experimental validation of numerical computations.•Practical, engineering computations.

Plate fin-and-tube heat exchangers operate in a cross-flow arrangement with the complex path of gas flow, hence in order to determine the velocity field and heat transfer characteristics, the numerical methods must be used. The CFD codes allow obtaining local values of the heat transfer coefficient, however it is impossible to incorporate these values into the analytical formulas for the overall heat transfer coefficient, that is fundamental for the designing procedure of the cross-flow heat exchangers. Therefore this paper presents a method for determination of the average heat transfer coefficient for gas flow in a plate fin-and-tube heat exchanger using the CFD simulations. The values of the heat transfer coefficient obtained using the heat transfer formulas for the Nusselt number, determined with the CFD simulations, can be directly implemented in the thermal designing procedure of the cross-flow heat exchangers. The results of the numerical computations are validated experimentally.