Heat transfer enhancement accompanying pressure-loss reduction with winglet-type vortex generators for fin-tube heat exchangers

This paper proposes a novel technique that can augment heat transfer but nevertheless can reduce pressure-loss in a fin-tube heat exchanger with circular tubes in a relatively low Reynolds number flow, by deploying delta winglet-type vortex generators. The winglets are placed with a heretofore-unused orientation for the purpose of augmentation of heat transfer. This orientation is called as “common flow up” configuration. The proposed configuration causes significant separation delay, reduces form drag, and removes the zone of poor heat transfer from the near-wake of the tubes. This enhancement strategy has been successfully verified by experiments in the proposed configuration. In case of staggered tube banks, the heat transfer was augmented by 30% to 10%, and yet the pressure loss was reduced by 55% to 34% for the Reynolds number (based on two times channel height) ranging from 350 to 2100, when the present winglets were added. In case of in-line tube banks, these were found to be 20% to 10% augmentation, and 15% to 8% reduction, respectively.