Experimental investigation of geometry effects on the performance of a compact louvered heat exchanger

In this study, air-side heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of flow over louvered fins in compact heat exchangers have been investigated experimentally. The test samples consist of two types of fin configurations. A series of tests were conducted to examine the geometrical parameters of louver pitch, louver arrangement and number of louver regions. The calculated results indicate that a symmetrical arrangement of louvered fins provides a 9.3% increase in heat transfer performance and a 18.2% decrease in pressure drop than the asymmetrical arrangement of louvered fin. Also, for a constant rate of heat transfer and pressure drop, a 17.6% decrease of fin weight is observed for the symmetrical arrangement of fins and this is following by considerable decrease in total weight and cost of the heat exchanger. The results from this investigation indicate that the configuration of the louvered fins has the dominant influence on the heat transfer and pressure drop from that louver.