Air side performance characterization of wavy Fin-and-tube heat exchangers having elliptic tubes with large waffle heights

Demand of less energy consumption and higher energy efficiency suggests increasing heat transfer performance of a fin-and-tube heat exchanger. This paper experimentally and numerically examines the air side performance of wavy fin-and-tube heat exchangers (FTHXs) with elliptic tubes. In a properly regulated and evenly distributed airflow supply loop, the inlet/outlet temperatures and pressure drops across the test section are obtained using two measuring meshes and a differential pressure transducer to resolve thermal and frictional outcomes in terms of the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop. The theoretical formulation considers the thermo-fluid analysis of crossing airflows over the wavy finned tube heat exchanger. In this research, the test heat exchanger contains elliptic tubes incorporated with 4-row wavy fins, while the proposed design adopts a large setting of 3.24-mm waffle height and 3.02-mm fin pitch, respectively. The predicted heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops are in good agreement with the measured data at varied inlet air velocities to validate the CFD model. Numerical simulations are then extended to investigate the influences of waffle height, fin pitch, wave length and inlet air velocity on thermofluid characteristics of FTHXs. Six common correlations of Colburn factors (j) and friction factor (f) factors are compared with predictions to evaluate their applicabilities for reasonable estimates of thermal and frictional performance of FTHXs. It is noticed that the correlation by Wang et al. can achieve the most accurate results in calculating the j and f factors.