Effect of Longitudinal-External-Fins on Fluid Flow Characteristics for Wing-Shaped Tubes Bundle in Crossflow

Abstract

A numerical study is conducted to clarify fluid-flow characteristics, pressure drop coefficient (Pdc), and the average skin friction coefficient (Cf,m) for wing-shaped-Tubes bundle with longitudinal fins at downstream side of the tube using the commercial CFD FLUENT software package. The air-side Rea ranges from 1800 to 9700. The tubes are employed with various fin heights (hf) and fin thicknesses (δ) such as 2 mm ≤ hf ≤ 12 mm and 1.5 mm ≤ δ ≤ 3.5 mm at the considered Rea range. Results indicate that ΔPa increases with Rea for all hf. Pdc decreases with Rea for all hf values for 1800 ≤ Rea ≤ 4200 and then increases for 4200 ≤ Rea ≤ 10000. Lowest values of ΔPa, Pdc, and pumping power (PP) occurred at hf = 6 mm. Values of Pdc for hf = 6 mm are lower than those of NOF and hf = 2 mm by about 73 % and 32 %, respectively, at Rea = 4000. Cf,m decreases with Rea. δ has negligible effect on Cf,m. ΔPa increases for 1.5 mm ≤ δ ≤ 2.5 mm while ΔPa decreases with 2.5 mm < δ ≤ 3.5 mm for the considered Rea range except for Rea = 1850.