Heat transfer and friction in an asymmetrically heated rectangular duct with half and fully perforated baffles at different pitches

The paper presents results of an experimental study of heat transfer and friction in a rectangular section duct with fully perforated baffles (open area ratio of 46.8%) or half perforated baffles (open area ratio of 26%) at relative roughness pitch of 7.2–28.8 affixed to one of the broader walls. The Reynolds number of the study ranges from 2700 to 11,150. The baffled wall of the duct is uniformly heated while the remaining three walls are insulated. These boundary conditions correspond closely to those found in solar air heaters. The study shows an enhancement of 79–169% in Nusselt number over the smooth duct for the fully perforated baffles and 133–274% for the half perforated baffles while the friction factor for the fully perforated baffles is 2.98–8.02 times of that for the smooth duct and is 4.42–17.5 times for the half perforated baffles. In general, the half perforated baffles are thermo-hydraulically better to the fully perforated baffles at the same pitch. Of all the configurations studied, the half perforated baffles at a relative roughness pitch of 7.2 give the greatest performance advantage of 51.6–75% over a smooth duct at equal pumping power.