Paper presented at the 6th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 30 June - 2 July, 2008.
This paper analyzes the fluid flow and heat exchange on
the air side of a multi-row fin-and-tube heat exchanger. A
comparison is given between fin-and-tube heat exchanger
characteristics with flat and louvered fins in a wider range of
operating conditions defined by Reynolds number (based on fin
spacing and air frontal velocities). The detailed representation
of calculated data for the louvered heat exchanger shows
significantly better heat transfer characteristics and a slightly
higher pressure drop. The CFD procedure was validated by
comparing the numerical simulation results with the
experimental results showing minimal average Nusselt number
deviation and almost perfectly corresponding pressure drop.
