Authors
Abstract
The louvered fin heat exchanger is a very widely used method to increase the
compact heat transfer coefficient on the air-side of condensers by adding fins and
initiating new boundary layer growth and increasing surface area. The governing
equations of such application are the Navier Steckes equation and energy equation. A
two-dimensional, turbulent, compressible flow is simulated and solved. The solution
gives the distributions of velocity and temperature (which is represented by Nusselt
number). Laminar and turbulent flow were studied experimentally and only turbulent
flow was studied theoretically, for a range of ReLp 230 to 8100 with constant inlet
temperature of 21C˚with two angles of louver fin 27˚ and 35 ˚. The ideal geometry for
heat transfer performance was determined to be dependent on Reynolds number. At
lower Reynolds number the optimal geometry was found to be θ = 27º and at high
Reynolds number the ideal geometry was determined to beθ = 35º, Fp/Lp = 0.587
)
