Optimization of horizontal annular finned tube under natural convection heat transfer

Abstract

Free convection heat transfer over annular finned tubes was studied numerically for more than 60 different cases and verified against two experimental works. In addition, the effect of fin spacing on heat transfer was investigated. As a result, a correlation was proposed to estimate Nusselt number as a function of Rayleigh number. Moreover, it was shown that there was an optimum fin spacing for which the total heat transfer was maximized. Based on the proposed equation, an expression for optimum fin spacing was derived, which proved that the optimum Nusselt number was 0.9035. The presented equation for optimum fin spacing was a general equation in so far that it could also be used to find the optimum spacing between a series of circular disks by letting the tube diameter in the equation be zero. Moreover, a good agreement was observed between the derived equation for optimum fin spacing and the results of the scale analysis method.