A Comparative Study on a Shrouded Fin Array With and Without Its Finite Dimension in the Flow Geometry

Abstract

In numerical heat transfer analysis, despite the involvement of the finite dimension in the geometries of heat-exchanging devices, these dimensions are frequently assumed to be adequately thin and hence neglected for the ease of analysis. But it may be essential to include the finite dimension of the heat transfer equipment which makes the study more realistic. There remains a dearth of literature in which the results of the fin heat transfer obtained from these considerations are compared, although existing numerical reports consider fin heat transfer—some including fin-thickness and the rest neglecting fin-thickness in the flow geometry. This acts as a motivation to examine and compare the results obtained from a study of numerical heat transfer on a shrouded vertical fin array including and neglecting fin-thickness in the flow geometry under mixed convection. From the present computations, it is noted that with the consideration of the fin-thickness, there is a possibility of an increase in axial pressure defect by around 45% indicating the requirement for higher pumping power. Again for the chosen range of parameters, overall Nusselt number increases by around 18% as compared to neglected fin-thickness that may arise due to altered heat transfer coefficient caused by higher velocity over the extended surface to accommodate finite fin dimension. Finally, pressure drop and Nusselt number are correlated with the governing parameters including fin-thickness.