International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 65 (2013) 686695

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

A numerical study on compact enhanced n-and-tube heat exchangers

with oval and circular tube congurations
Hui Han, Ya-Ling He , Yin-Shi Li, Yu Wang, Ming Wu
Key Laboratory of Thermo-Fluid Science and Engineering of MOE, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xian Jiaotong University, Xian, Shaanxi 710049, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, the uid ow and heat transfer characteristics of nned tube heat exchangers were numer-
Received 30 March 2013 ically investigated by examining different oval and circular tubes. The three kinds of tubes were applied
Received in revised form 23 May 2013 with two types of enhanced ns, wavy n and louvered n. The results reveal that using the oval n-tube
Accepted 19 June 2013
can not only reduce the ow resistance but also improve the heat transfer capacity of the heat exchangers
Available online 18 July 2013
which effectively improved the n efciency. As comparing with the big circle-tube louver n, the heat
transfer rate of oval-tube n is increased by 1.54.9%, while the pressure drop loss is decreased by 22.0
Keywords:
31.8%. The ns with the big circular-tube have higher heat transfer coefcients and smaller total heat
Heat exchanger
Oval tube
transfer area. For louver n, in terms of heat transfer rate, the heat transfer coefcient is more signicant
Enhanced n than the heat transfer area. It was also found that the parameter of minimum thermal resistance based on
Performance comparison the entransy dissipation can be used to optimize the heat transfer performance, and therefore designing
Entransy dissipation principle the optimal heat exchanger structure.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Owing to the high-effective heat transfer performance and the
compact structure, the n-and-tube heat exchangers have been
widely used in many elds, including heating, ventilation, air con-
ditioning, and refrigeration (HVACR). Generally, 90% of the thermal
resistance is caused by the air-side thermal resistance. To lower
the thermal resistance for improving the performance, many ef-
forts have been concentrated on enhancing the air-side heat trans-
fer by designing new ns and investigating the effects of n
pattern and structural parameter. Beecher and Fangan [1] tested
27 n-and-tube heat exchangers with 21 of them having wavy-
n geometries. Webb [2] used a multiple regression technique to
correlate Beecher and Fangan [1] data. Wang et al. [3] tested 49
samples of louvered n-and-tube heat exchangers with different
geometrical parameters on heat transfer and pressure drop perfor-
mance and developed their own correlations. Yun and Lee [4,5]
experimentally investigated three kinds of slit ns and adopted
Taguchi method to optimize seven types of structural parameters
of slit ns. Kang and Kim [6] experimentally studied the effect of
strip location of X-arrangement and found that a hybrid n with
plain n at rst row and strip n at rear row was more effective
to enhance heat transfer than that of whole strip n at the same
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 29 8266 5930, +86 29 8266 3851; fax: +86 29
8266 5445.
E-mail addresses: yalinghe@mail.xjtu.edu.cn, hylepe@yahoo.com.cn (Y.-L. He).
fan power. Qu et al. [7] further simulated four types of slit ns with
the same geometry dimensions as used by Kang and Kims, and the
explanations for why the slit n with all the strips on the rear part
shows better performance was proposed from the view point of
led synergy principle. Recently, Tao et al. [8] numerically vali-
dated the principle of front sparse and rear dense for the
arrangements of strips on the n surface. They indicated that when
the thermal resistances in the front and rear part are nearly iden-
tical, the optimum n surface can be obtained.
However, few researches have been focused on the nned-oval-
tube heat exchangers in open literatures. Chen et al. [9]
numerically explored the conjugate heat transfer of nned-oval-
tube heat exchangers with punched delta winglet vortex generator.
Leu et al. [10] numerically investigated the air-side performance of
n-and-tube heat exchangers having circular and oval tube cong-
urations, and the geometrical parameters of the louver n have
also been examined. Tiwari et al. [11] performed a numerical study
of uid ow and heat transfer in a channel with built-in oval tube
and delta winglets. The results indicate that vortex generators in
conjunction with the oval tube can be promising for the improve-
ment of the heat exchanger performance. OBrien et al. [12] exper-
imentally investigated the forced convection heat transfer in a
narrow rectangular duct tted with an elliptical tube and one or
two delta-winglet pairs. More recently, He and Zhang [13]
reviewed the applications of longitudinal vortex generators and
oval tubes on n-and-tube heat exchangers. Simo Tala et al. [14]
studied the effect of the iso-sectional tube shape modication

0017-9310/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2013.06.049
 H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 65 (2013) 686695
Nomenclature
A0 total surface area (m2)
a major axes of the oval-tube (m)
b minor axes of the oval-tube (m)
cp specic heat at constant pressure (J kg1 K1)
cv specic heat at constant volume (J kg1 K1)
Dh hydraulic diameter (m)
Dl perimeter (m)
DE entransy dissipation (W K)
Fp n pitch (m)
f friction factor
h heat transfer coefcient (W m2 K1)
j Colburn factor
L n length along the main ow direction (m)
Lh louver height (m)
Nu Nusselt number
p pressure (Pa)
Pd wafe height (m)
Pl longitudinal tube pitch (m)
Pt transverse tube pitch (m)
Pr Prandtl number
Q heat transfer rate (W)
(from circular to elliptic) on the air-side thermalhydraulic charac-
teristics and entropy production rate. An increase of up to 80% in
the thermalhydraulic performance was reported with the reduc-
tion of the tube ellipticity when compared to circular tube shape.
Although nned-oval-tube heat exchangers have been employed
by some scholars, the focus of these studies was still on the n
geometries. There are fewer reports committed to the research of
tube types individually; hence comparative studies for nned tube
heat exchanger with different tubes are especially insufcient. For
the typical nned tube heat exchangers which one side of the uid
is air the airow velocity is relatively lower, pressure drag is gen-
erally considered to be the main part of the ow resistance. Com-
pare to the heat exchangers with circular tubes, the frontal area
and form drag of the tube itself are all smaller for nned-oval-tube
heat exchangers. In addition, the streamline geometry of the oval
tube can effectively reduce the area of trailing vortex region, and
therefore improves the heat transfer performance behind the tube.
On the other hand, for heat exchangers with circular tubes, the lo-
cal acceleration effect is stronger than that of the oval tube at the
contraction region in the n channel, due to the smaller circulation
sectional area between the spanwise tubes, and the higher striking
velocity will enhance the local heat transfer on the n surface. In
order to save the copper material of nned tube heat exchangers,
there have been some efforts to reduce the tube diameter of nned
tube heat exchangers to save tube material in recent years. For the
given overall size of the heat exchanger, using tubes with smaller
diameters can increase the nned surface area, which is benet
to increase heat transfer rate and reduce the form drag of the tubes.
This study will focus on the tube shape and diameter to determine
the leading factors to the overall heat exchanger performance
differences.
The heat transfer in heat exchangers is an irreversible process in
terms of non-equilibrium thermodynamics due to the dissipation of
transport processes. Many efforts have been made to establish the
correlation between the heat transfer performance and heat trans-
fer irreversibility. Bejan [15,16] presents the procedure of entropy-
generation minimization for the optimization of thermodynamic
system. The irreversibilities associated with uid ow through a
channel were attributed to heat transfer and viscous friction. There-
after, abundant researches related to the optimal design based on
687
qm mass ow rate (kg s1)
Re Reynolds number based on 2 times n pitch
Rex entransy-dissipation-based thermal resistance (K W1)
T temperature (K)
u, v, w velocity components in x-, y-, z- directions (m s1)
Xf projected n pattern length of wavy n (m)
x, y, z Cartesian coordinates (m)
Greek Symbols
df n thickness (m)
l dynamic viscosity (kg m1 s1)
q density (kg m3)
k thermal conductivity (W m1 K1)
g n efciency
Subscripts
f n
in inlet
out outlet
w tube wall
the minimal entropy generation principle have been conducted
[1720]. However the entropy generation paradox is not consistent
with the principle of minimal entropy generation. Although some
scholars tried to explain the entropy generation paradox, none of
them can adequately explain the inconsistency between the heat
transfer performance and minimum irreversibility [21]. Recently,
Guo et al. [22] introduced a new physical quantity by using an anal-
ogy between heat and electricity, termed entransy, to describe the
heat transfer potential capacity. During a heat transfer process, the
entransy will be partially dissipated, which can be used to evaluate
the irreversibility of heat transfer. Then entransy dissipation extre-
mum principle was proposed to analyze and optimize the heat
transfer processes, including heat conduction [23], heat convection
[24] and radiation heat transfer [25], and a few heat transfer
enhancement technologies have been developed by using alter-
nately oval tubes and discrete doubled inclined rib tubes [26,27].
Moreover the optimized results obtained by entransy dissipation
extremum principle are consistent with the led synergy optimiza-
tion for prescribed temperature boundary condition [28,29].
In present work, an oval tube (the length ratio of major and minor
axes is 2.23) and two types of circular tubes (one with same perim-
eter as the oval tube, the other has the same hydraulic diameter as
the oval tube) were numerically investigated to explore the effects
of tube geometry and dimensions on the heat transfer and uid ow
characteristics in the n channels. The three tubes were applied with
two kinds of enhanced ns, including wavy n and louvered n. Un-
der the same size of the n, the direct and indirect impacts of tube
types on the heat exchanger performance were analyzed and com-
pared in detail. Entransy dissipation and heat resistance based on
entransy dissipation were compared to the heat-transfer perfor-
mance data to verify the corresponding relations between them.
The results show that the new physical quantity being used to eval-
uate and optimize heat transfer process is reliable.
2. Model description
2.1. Physical model
Fig. 1(a) is a schematic of the three kinds of heat exchange tubes
for the current research, including an oval tube and two circular
688 H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 65 (2013) 686695

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of n-and-tube heat exchangers with oval-tube and circle-tube congurations: (a) geometrical dimensions of heat exchange tubes, (b) n
geometry models, (c) n dimensions.

tubes. For the two circular tubes, one has the same perimeter
Table 1
(Dl = 8.8 mm) as the oval tube, the other has the same hydraulic Global parameters of heat exchanger and computational conditions.
diameter (Dh = 6.12 mm) as the oval tube (major axes
Parameter Size or value
a = 11.01 mm, minor axes b = 4.94 mm). To focus on the compari-
son study of tube types, the three kinds of heat exchange tubes Major axes of oval-tube (a) 11.01 mm
Minor axes of oval-tube (b) 4.94 mm
were applied with wavy and louvered ns, respectively, as shown
Big circular-tube diameter (Dl) 8.8 mm
in Fig. 1(c). For the wavy n, the projected n pattern length Small circular-tube diameter (Dh) 6.12 mm
Xf = 1.45 mm, wafe height Pd = 0.5 mm. For louvered n the n Transverse tube spacing (Pt) 17.8 mm
pitch Fp = 1.62 mm, the louver height Lh = 0.8 mm. Fig. 1(b) show Longitudinal tube spacing (Pl) 21.6 mm
the computational model of six n tube combinations with corre- Fin pitch (Fp) 1.52 mm
Fin thickness (df) 0.125 mm
sponding numbers from #1 to #6. Along the airow direction only
Frontal velocity (uin) 0.52.5 m/s
one row of tube is considered. All ns investigated have the same Inlet temperature of air (Tin) 308 K
overall sizes, and the detailed geometry dimensions and computa- Wall temperature (Tw) 353 K
tional conditions are list in Table 1. Fin material Aluminum, k = 204 Wm1 K1
Fig. 2 presents the pictorial view of the computational region for
the nned tube heat exchanger. As shown in the gure, the airow
direction is x-direction, n spanwise direction is y-direction, and
n pitch direction is along the z-direction. Due to the geometry 2.2. Numerical methods
character of periodic and symmetry, the region sketched by dashed
lines is selected as the computational domain, and the n is located The uid is considered to be incompressible with constant ther-
at the center of the ow domain in the y-direction. In the airow mophysical properties. Due to the low air inlet velocity and the
direction (x-direction) the computational region is extended small n space, the ow in the n channel of compact heat
accordingly to ensure the uniform incoming ow condition at inlet exchangers is assumed to be laminar and steady state. The thermal
and outow condition at the exit [30]. contact resistance between the tube and n collar is ignored, and
 H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 65 (2013) 686695 689

Fig. 2. The schematic of the computational domain.

the tube surface is set as constant temperature. The effect of n Q real

g 6
thickness on the heat conduction in the ns is taken into account. Q ideal
The temperature distribution in the ns will be determined by
solving the conjugated heat transfer problem between uid and so-
lid in the computational domain. The governing equations and where uin is the airow velocity at inlet, h is the heat transfer coef-
boundary conditions for the numerical simulation in this paper
cient of the n, Dp is the total pressure drop over the n length, g
can be found in Ref. [30]. is the n efciency, Qreal is the actual heat transfer rate between n
The preprocessor GAMBIT was used to generate the computa- surface and air, Qideal is the ideal heat transfer rate when n temper-
tional meshes. For the louvered n, structured meshes were used ature is equal to the tube wall temperature and g0 is the n surface
in the upstream and downstream extended regions, while unstruc- efciency [8].
tured meshes were adopted in the n coil region; as for the wavy
n, only structured meshes were employed. After the verication
of grid independence, 1,200,000 hexahedral meshes for wavy n 0.06
and 2,000,000 hybrid meshes for louver n were adopted. The
computational uid code FLUENT was used to solve the foregoing wavy-Wang et al. [31]
0.05 wavy-numerical
governing equations with the boundary conditions. Both the con- louver-Wang et al.[32]
vective and diffusive terms in governing equations for momentum louver-numerical
0.04
and energy are discretized by second-order upwind scheme. The
coupling between velocity and pressure is implemented by the
j

SIMPLEC algorithm. The convergence criterion is that the normal- 0.03

ized residuals are less than 1:0  104 for the momentum equation
and less than 1:0  107 for the energy equation. 0.02

0.01
3. Data reduction
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
In nned tube heat exchangers, the performance parameters Re
depend on the geometry and ow conditions. For current study, (a)
2 times n pitch H is selected as the character length. The 0.20
denitions of Reynolds number and other parameters are given wavy-Wang et al. [31]
as follows: wavy-numerical
louver-Wang et al.[32]
quin H 0.15
louver-numerical
Re 1
l
Q
f

0.10
h 2
A0 DT g0

Nu h
j Pr2=3 3 0.05
RePr 1=3 qucp

Dp H 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

f 1  4
2
qu2 L Re
(b)
hH
Nu 5 Fig. 3. Comparison of Colburn j-factor and friction factor between numerical and
k
experimental results: (a) Colburn j-factor and (b) friction factor.
690 H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 65 (2013) 686695

According to the denition of entransy, when cold uid ow 4. Results and discussion
over hot wall surface, the entransy balance relationship for cold
stream is written as: 4.1. Model validation

1 1
cv qm T 2in cv qm T 2out qqm T in  T out T w DE 7 In order to validate the present numerical model, the numerical
2 2 results for wavy and louvered ns with circular-tube arrangements
Here cv is specic heat at constant volume, qm is the mass ow rate, were compared with experimental data [31,32]. As shown in Fig. 3,
DE is the entransy dissipation of the heat transfer process. The ther- the numerical predictions of j-factor and f-factor have the similar
mal resistance based on entransy dissipation can be dened as: tendency as the experimental results for air frontal velocities vary-
ing from 0.5 to 2.5 m/s. As in Fig. 3(a), the maximum deviation of
DE j-factor for wavy and louver n is about 6.8%, and the average devi-
Rex 8
Q2 ation between numerical and experimental results is 4.5%. As in

Fig. 4. Streamline plot on the cross-section y = 0.6 mm and y = 0.3 mm for three tubes: (a) wavy n and (b) louver n.
 H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 65 (2013) 686695
Fig. 3(b), the maximum deviation of f-factor for wavy and louver
n is about 20.0% and 14.7%, and the average deviation between
numerical and experimental results is 13.3% and 9.3%. The agree-
ment between the numerical results and experimental data indi-
cates the reliability of the computational model.
4.2. Effect of tube types on the uid ow characteristics
Fig. 4 shows the ow structure of the two kinds of ns at differ-
ent cross-sections in n pitch direction (y-direction), and the
incoming airow velocity is at 1.5 m/s. It can be observed that
for oval-tube ns (#1, #4 n) the ow separation points are closer
to the rear part of the tubes compared to the case of circular tubes,
and thus smaller wake region and lower form drag of the tubes can
be obtained. In contrast, the ns with the big circular tube have the
largest recirculation region and form drag. To examine the effect of
the ns on the uid ow, different ow cross-sections are ex-
tracted in the y-direction. The streamlines closer to the n surface
(y = 0.3 mm) is squeezed towards to the tube wall for the six ns,
which leads to a reduction in the wake region area and pressure
loss. Compared to the wavy n with the same tube in Fig. 4(a),
the wake regions of louvered ns are smaller as shown in
Fig. 4(b), since the strips near the tube can form a uid channel
with the tube and channelize the uid ow around the tube, which
restrains the ow separation from the tube.
For the uid ow in the n channels, two main ow resistances
should be considered: one is the form drag resistance of the tubes,
and the other is the friction resistance of the ns. Generally the
friction resistance depends on the uid velocity over the ns,
which is different for the tubes with different geometries. To
consider the ow resistance of the ns simultaneously, the curves
of span-averaged pressure drop along the streamwise direction
(x-direction) are shown in Fig. 5 at uin = 1.5 m/s, and the tube
locations are sketched by the dotted lines, from which it can be
observed that the most part of pressure drop loss is located
between the spanwise tubes. The pressure drop of the ns with
oval tube varies gently in the whole ow channel, while that circu-
lar-tube ns with a larger diameter show a drastically reduction in
pressure. Compared to the wavy n, the louvered ns present high-
er overall pressure losses. When the circular-tube n with a larger
diameter is employed, the mean ow velocity between spanwise
tubes is higher, which makes the striking to the n surface stronger
and leads to an increase in pressure losses.
Fig. 6 shows the total pressure drop versus incoming ow veloc-
ity for six n-tube combinations. As shown in Fig. 6, the pressure
drop increases with increasing air velocity for all ns. Under the
same n pattern, the oval-tube cases always exhibit the lowest
0
#3,6
#2,4
-5 #1,5
-10 #1,5
Px (Pa)
#2,4
-15 #3,6
wavy fin louver fin
#1, #4, oval
-20
#2, #5, circular
#3, #6, circular
-25
0 5 10 15
x (mm)
Fig. 5. Distribution of local average pressure drop along the streamwise direction at
vin = 1.5 m/s.
691
50
wavy fin louver fin
#1, #4, oval
40
#2, #5, circular
#3, #6, circular
30
20
10
0
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
u (m s-1)
Fig. 6. Pressure drop versus frontal velocity.
pressure drop, and the circular-tube n with a larger diameter is
just on the contrary. The pressure losses of louvered ns are obvi-
ously higher than that of wavy ns. Compare to the big cylinder
and small cylinder wavy n, the pressure loss of the oval-tube
wavy n is decreased by 28.542.3% and 1.924.0%; when com-
pared with the big cylinder and small cylinder louvered n, the
pressure loss of the oval-tube louvered n is decreased by 22.0%
to 31.8% and 1.8% to 3.5%. This is mainly because the frontal areas
of the elliptic tube and circular tube with a smaller diameter are
very close such that their form drag resistance and ow velocity
are similar in the n channels. But, as expected, the slight differ-
ence in frontal area makes the total pressure drop for the small
circular-tube lower than the oval-tube ns. As for the big circu-
lar-tube case, except the larger form drag from the tube, the in-
crease in friction resistance of the n due to the local
acceleration effect when uid ow through the narrow n channel
is another reason for the great pressure drop penalty.
4.3. Effect of tube types on the heat transfer and performance
comparison
Fig. 7 shows the temperature distribution in the n surface for
the six ns at uin = 1.5 m/s. It can be noted that the n temperature
of big circular-tube cases are highest, then the oval tube cases are
in second, and the cases of small circular-tube are lowest. In the
windward side of the ns the larger temperature gradient also
means better heat transfer performance. While in the wake region,
where uid has been warmed, lower temperature differences
weaken the heat transfer between the n surface and uid, and a
weaker ow condition further deteriorates the local heat transfer
performance. As shown in the gure, the n temperature gradient
behind the tube is relative smaller, especially for big circular-tube
ns. Compared to wavy n, the louvered n shows lower surface
temperature which can be attributed to the more sufcient heat
transfer with uid. In addition, for current louvered n the strip lo-
cated in the middle of the n are partly slotted, which forms a
semi-close space for the uid and is unfavorable for the ow
organization.
Fig. 8 quantitatively shows the variations of span-averaged n
temperature along the airow direction. As shown in the gure,
the oval-tube ns always exhibit the most uniform temperature
distributions. For the big circular-tube cases, the n temperature
20
at the ow contraction region is higher than that of the oval-tube
ns. The ns with a small circular-tube show abrupt temperature
variation and lowest n temperature, which is consistent with
the results of Fig. 7.
692 H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 65 (2013) 686695

Fig. 7. Temperature distribution (unit, K) on n surface: (a) wavy n and (b) louver n.

seen that big cylinder wavy n has the highest n efciency for
355 higher Reynolds number values, while the n efciency for the
small circular-tube case is evidently lowest in the whole Reynolds
350 number range. For wavy n, the n efciency of the big circular-
tube is superior to that of oval-tube, but for the louvered n, the
345 opposite conclusion can be drawn. The reason for this is because
the n temperature distributions along the ow direction are eas-
340 #1,4 ier to be affected for the louver n with an interrupted design
Tx (K)

#2,5
335 #3,6 which will obstruct the heat transfer through the n and lead to
a non-uniform temperature distribution. The oval-tube ns offer
330 wavy fin louver fin more effective heat transfer path, and reduce the unfavorable ef-
#3,6 #1, #4, oval fect of the interrupt n on heat transfer. Compare to the wavy ns,
325 #2,5 #2, #5, circular the n efciencies of louvered ns are lower, but a better improve-
#1,4 #3, #6, circular
ment for louvered n with oval-tube can be seen relative to the
320
0 5 10 15 20 other tube types in the n efciency.
x (mm) Fig. 10 shows the comparison results of heat transfer coefcient
for the six ns at different frontal velocity. It can be seen that the
Fig. 8. Variations of span-average n temperature along the streamwise direction. heat transfer coefcient increases with the increase of the velocity,
but the increase in tendency is weakened gradually at higher ow
velocities. For the two types of ns the oval-tube cases (#1,#4 n)
1.00 always have the best heat transfer coefcients, then the big circu-
lar-tube cases (#2, #5 n) are in second, and the small circular-
0.95 tube cases (#3, #6 n) shows the worst heat transfer performance.
0.90
Compared to the #2 and #3 wavy ns, the heat transfer coefcient
of #1 oval-tube n is increased by 0.38% and 9.310.1%; com-
0.85 pared to the #5 and #6 louvered ns, the heat transfer coefcient
of #4 ova-tube louver n is increased by 3.26.6% and 26.028.4%.
f

0.80 It can be explained that the streamline geometry and smaller fron-
tal area of the oval-tube offers the gentle velocity variation in the
0.75 wavy fin louver fin
#1, #4, oval n channels and smaller tube wake region, which promise lower
0.70 #2, #5, circular pressure losses and higher heat transfer coefcients in the compu-
#3, #6, circular tational domain. On the contrary, the big circular-tube cases result
0.65 in the larger wake region and higher striking velocity at the con-
100 200 300 400 500
traction region, which means local heat transfer deterioration
and sharply pressure drop. It also should be noted that the current
Fig. 9. Fin efciency versus Re.
results have some differences with the research reported by Leu
et al. [10]. In their investigation the heat transfer performance of
The n efciencies versus Reynolds number of the six ns are the circular tube is superior to the oval tube, and the perimeter
presented in Fig. 9. As shown in the gure, at low Reynolds number of the oval tube is equal to that of the circular tube. Expect for
the n efciencies of all six n surfaces dont have signicant dif- the differences in detailed geometrical parameters, a reason can
ferences. The n efciency decreases with the increase of Reynolds be that in their study the strip length is xed while here we only
number, which is consistent with the heat transfer theory. It can be x the distance between the tube and louver strips. When the
 H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 65 (2013) 686695 693

140 0.050
wavy fin louver fin wavy fin louver fin
#1, #4, oval 0.045 #1, #4, oval
120 #2, #5, circular #2, #5, circular
#3, #6, circular 0.040 #3, #6, circular

100
h (W m-2 K-1)

0.035

j/f
0.030
80
0.025
60
0.020

40 0.015
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 100 200 300 400 500
Re
u (m s-1)
Fig. 12. Area goodness factor comparison of the six ns.
Fig. 10. Heat transfer coefcient versus frontal velocity.

coefcient on heat transfer rate is more signicant, as a result, the

lengths of the tube reduces in the spanwise direction, the louver
#5 n is always superior to #6 n in heat transfer rate, and this
and wavy length will be increased, which is benet to heat transfer
indicates that the improvement of heat transfer coefcient is more
argument on the n surface.
effective than the increase of the heat transfer area for louvered n.
Under the same geometrical dimensions of the heat exchanger,
Fig. 12 shows area goodness factor of j/f for six different ns
different tube types results in different heat transfer area in the air-
with Reynolds numbers. It can be seen that the j/f ratio of two
side and bring about the difference in heat transfer rate indirectly.
kinds of oval-tube ns are superior to the circular-tube ns.
To evaluate the overall heat transfer performance, Fig. 11 presents
Although the heat transfer performance of small circular-tube ns
the heat transfer rate of the six ns at different frontal velocity. The
cant match the big circular-tube cases, better comprehensive per-
variation trends of heat transfer rate are similar to that of the heat
formance can be observed due to the lower pressure drop penalty.
transfer coefcient. The oval-tube ns have the highest heat trans-
Compared to the #2 and #3 circular-tube ns, the j/f value of #1
fer rate, whatever the n type is, and the conclusions are consistent
oval-tube n is increased by 5181.8% and 11.943.8%, respec-
with Fig. 10. Compared to the #2 and #3 wavy ns, the heat
tively; compared to the #5 and #6 circular-tube ns, the j/f value
transfer rate of #1 oval-tube wavy n is increased by 3.66.2%
of #4 oval-tube n is increased by 36.851.3% and 24.033.1%,
and 1.84.6%, respectively; compared to the #5 and #6 louver ns,
respectively.
the heat transfer rate of #4 oval-tube louver n is increased by 1.5
4.9% and 2.813.9%, respectively. The #2 and 3# wavy ns have lit-
4.4. Entransy dissipation and thermal resistance analysis
tle difference in heat transfer rate; the heat transfer rate of #2 n is
slightly larger at the lower velocity range, while the #3 n shows
As mentioned above, entransy is a parameter that can describes
better performance in the higher velocity range. The explanation
its heat transfer ability. According to the theory proposed by Guo
can be that the heat transfer rate depends on both the heat transfer
et al. [22], the entransy dissipation during heat transfer process
coefcient and heat transfer surface area; the big circular-tube ns
as a measure of heat transfer irreversibility can be used to evaluate
have higher heat transfer coefcient, but smaller heat transfer
and optimize heat transfer process. Fig. 13 shows the variation of
area; at low ow velocity the difference in heat transfer coefcient
entransy dissipation versus Re for six different ns. As shown in
is small for different ns, so the heat transfer rate of #2 n is higher
the gure, with the increase of Reynolds number, the entransy dis-
than that of #3 ns due to larger heat transfer area differences.
sipation of convection heat transfer process increases correspond-
With the increase of velocity, the increase in heat transfer coef-
ingly. Combined with Fig. 11, it can be observed that under the
cient of big circular-tube n is far higher than that of small
constant tube wall temperature condition, the larger the entransy
circular-tube case, thus the heat transfer rate of #3 n is larger
dissipation is, the higher the irreversibility and heat transfer rate
at the high ow velocity. For louvered n, the effect of heat transfer
becomes, which is consistent with the investigation of Guo et al.
The extremum of entransy dissipation is relative to the extremum
1.4 of heat transfer capacity, and can be effective to describe the heat
transfer irreversibility.
wavy fin louver fin
1.2 The thermal resistance parameter is widely used for heat ex-
#1, #4, oval
#2, #5, circular changer analyses. The common denition of the thermal resistance
#3, #6, circular in the heat transfer textbooks is suitable for one-dimensional heat
1.0
conduction, while for convection heat transfer it is not easy to eval-
uate the thermal resistance. Zhu [33] dened the thermal resis-
Q (W)

0.8
tance based on entransy dissipation as shown in Eq. (8), which is
considered to be used for complicated heat transfer process. More
0.6
than that, the minimum thermal resistance principle can be
generally applied to heat exchanger evaluation and optimization
0.4
without the limitations of entropy method [21]. As seen in
Fig. 14, with the increase of Reynolds number the entransy-dissi-
0.2 pation-based thermal resistance gradually decreases. Compared
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
u (m s-1) with Fig. 11, the oval-tube ns with the higher heat transfer rate
also have the lower thermal resistance; when the thermal
Fig. 11. Heat transfer rate versus frontal velocity. resistance takes the minimum value, the heat transfer rate of the
694 H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 65 (2013) 686695

40 n is superior to that of the big circular-tube; for louver

wavy fin louver fin n, in terms of heat transfer rate, the heat transfer coef-
35 #1, #4, oval cient is more signicant than the heat transfer area.
#2, #5, circular (3) The pressure drop loss mainly occurs between the spanwise
30 #3, #6, circular tubes, including the form drag of the tubes and friction drag
of the n, and the latter is especially signicant for the lou-
E (WK)

25
vered n due to the local acceleration effect at the ow con-
20 traction region.
(4) Oval tubes can signicantly improve the n surface temper-
15 ature distribution along the ow direction, making the tem-
perature distribution more uniform, thereby improving the
10 n efciency. Compared to the wavy ns, the n efciencies
of louvered ns are lower, but a better improvement can be
5
100 200 300 400 500 obtained for the n with oval-tube conguration.
Re (5) The corresponding relation between the entransy-dissipa-
tion extreme and heat transfer performance is veried, as
Fig. 13. Entransy dissipation versus Re. observed, when the entransy dissipation is maximized, the
heat transfer rate is highest, and the entransy-dissipation-
based thermal resistance is minimized. The entransy dissi-
80 wavy fin louver fin pation can be further used as the optimized object for heat
#1, #4, oval
#2, #5, circular
exchanger optimization.
70
#3, #6, circular
60
Rex (K W-1)

50
40
30
20
100 200 300 400
Re
Fig. 14. Entransy-dissipation-based thermal resistance versus Re.
corresponding n is just the highest. It is clear that minimum ther-
mal resistance introduced by entransy dissipation can be used to
evaluate the performance of the heat exchangers.
5. Conclusions
In this study, a three-dimensional numerical simulation was
performed to examine the effects of different oval and circular
tubes on the uid ow and heat transfer characteristics of nned
tube heat exchangers. The three kinds of tubes were applied with
two types of enhanced ns, wavy n and louvered n. The detailed
comparisons for the three types of heat exchange tubes were con-
ducted. The numerical results were analyzed from the viewpoint of
the entransy dissipation. The main conclusions are summarized as
follows:
(1) The oval-tube n shows the better heat transfer perfor-
mance and lower pressure loss due to the improvement of
the ow characteristics in the wake region. Compare to the
big and small circular tubes ns, when the wavy n was
employed, the heat transfer coefcient of the oval-tube n
is increased by 0.38% and 9.310.1%, the pressure drop loss
is decreased by 28.542.3% and 1.924.0%; when the lou-
vered n was used, the heat transfer coefcient of the
oval-tube n is increased by 3.26.6% and 26.028.4%, the
pressure drop loss is decreased by 22.0% to 31.8% and
1.8% to 3.5%.
(2) The ns with the big circular tube have higher heat transfer
coefcients and smaller total heat transfer area. For the
wavy n, the heat transfer rate of the small circular-tube
Acknowledgments
The present work is supported by the National Key Basic Re-
search Program of China (973 Program) (2013CB228304), the Spe-
cialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher
Education (20120201130006) and China National Hi-Tech R&D
(863 Plan) project (2013AA050502).
500
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