Effect of flow bypass on the performance of a shrouded longitudinal fin array

Theoretical and experimental studies were carried out to investigate the effects of duct velocity, fin density and tip-to-shroud clearance on the flow bypass and its impact on the pressure drop across a longitudinal aluminum fin array and its thermal performance. The clearance was varied parametrically, starting with the fully shrouded case and variations of the channel height giving partially shrouded configuration of different clearance ratios were also carried out. The flow bypass was found to increase with increasing fin density and insensitive to the air flow rate. This effect of fin density decreased as the clearance increased. The calculated total pressure was greatly affected by fin density. For fully-shrouded fin array, with Hf/S equals to 8 and 12.72, the pressure drop increased by a factor of 4.3 and 20 of that with Hf/S equals to 3.4, respectively. The total pressure drop and the average convective heat transfer coefficients corresponding to the fully and partially shrouded tested fin array of Hf/S = 3.4 were compared. Going from fully to partially shrouded one of the largest clearance ratio (C/Hf = 0.89), the total pressure drop is reduced by about 50%. For clearance ratios equal to 0.36, 0.56, and 0.89, the average heat transfer coefficients were reduced by about 12, 17, and 30% of that for the fully shrouded configuration at ReD of about 3 × 103. That percentage reduction in heat transfer coefficients are decreased with the increase of air flow rate.