Theoretical and Experimental Investigation of Forced Convection of Airflow Over Longitudinally Finned Flat Tube Bank Heat Exchanger

Heat exchangers play a crucial role in various industrial applications. The present paper numerically and experimentally investigated the effects of the Reynolds number (Re), dimensionless transverse pitch ((S_T ) ̂), dimensionless longitudinal pitch ((S_L ) ̂), dimensionless upstream fin length ((L_u)) ̂, dimensionless downstream fin length ((L_d ) ̂), and dimensionless fin angle (θ ̂) on the heat transfer performance of a longitudinally finned flat tube bank heat exchanger (LFFTBHE) with staggered configurations. The constant surface temperature was assumed. The studied parameters ranges were 223≤Re≤1114, 3≤(S_T ) ̂≤5, 4≤(S_L ) ̂ ≤ 5, 0.4≤(L_u ) ̂≤ 1, 0.4≤(L_d ) ̂≤1.0, and 0.26≤θ ̂≤ 0.78. The results showed that the average Nu increased steadily with Re, i.e., 6.3≤Nu≤14.6. Nu reduced up to 18% with increasing (S_T ) ̂. Nu slightly improved with increasing (S_L ) ̂ up to 2.1%. Nu decreased with increasing (L_u ) ̂ up to 12%. (L_d ) ̂ showed a contradictory impact on Nu depending on Re. θ ̂ increase improved Nu up to 15.5%. Two correlations were proposed based on the numerical and experimental data.