Effects of the Pitch of in-Line Delta Winglet Vortex Generators on Heat Transfer of a Finned Three-Row Flat Tube Bank

The naphthalene sublimation technique via the heat and mass transfer analogy is used to study the effects of the pitch of in-line delta winglet vortex generators on heat transfer and pressure drop of a finned three-row flat tube bank. The results show that the pitch of the in-line vortex generator has a strong effect on the heat transfer performance. The optimal pitch depends on the performance evaluation criteria. With the configurations considered in this article, for identical pumping power or combined constraint, a small pitch of 0.33 is best; for the identical pressure drop constraint, a value of 0.42 is best.