Heat Transfer and Performance Enhancement of Porous Split Elliptical Fins

Abstract

To augment the heat transfer phenomenon, the infusion of various fin geometry over the heated plate is being investigated by various researchers. Solid fins of the porous medium can enhance the convective heat transfer, providing a higher surface area-to-volume ratio for heat transfer. In this work, the fluid flow pattern and thermodynamic analysis of porous-based split elliptical fins mounted staggered over a heated base plate is numerically studied with the Reynolds numbers in the range of 783 to 1839, which is dependent on the fin dimension. The variable parameters were dimensionless transverse offset ( ${\text{TO}}^{\ast }=\text{transverse}\text{offset}/\text{diameter}$ ), which varied from 0 to 0.5; dimensionless longitudinal offset ( $\text{L}{\text{O}}^{\ast }=\text{longitudinal}\text{offset}/\text{diameter}$ ), which varied from 0 to 0.25; porosity (ɸ), which varies from 0.8 to 0.92; pores per inch (PPI), which was 10; permeability ( $P_n$ ); and inertial parameter ( $F$ ). To count the viscous and inertial effect inside the porous zone, the Forchheimer–Brinkman extended Darcy model was adopted. The associated parameters, the Nusselt number (Nu), frictional coefficient ( $C_f$ ), and performance evaluation criteria (PEC), are thoroughly analyzed over the TO ${}^{\ast }$ and LO ${}^{\ast }$ combination. The results of the investigation revealed that the highest value of Nu and PEC was obtained by ${\text{TO}}^{\ast }=0.5$ and $\text{L}{\text{O}}^{\ast }=0$ at $ɸ=0.92$ , which were approximately 54% and 79% higher than the solid circular fin at $\mathrm{Re}=1839$ . Additionally, a response function based on Nu was obtained using the response surface method, and cuckoo optimization was assessed to identify the optimal Nu. The optimal Nu is established at ${\text{TO}}^{\ast }=0.4141$ and $\text{L}{\text{O}}^{\ast }=0$ ( $ɸ=0.92$ and $\mathrm{Re}=1839$ ) and was validated with the present investigation with an accuracy of 1.20%.