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