Study on Heat Transfer Characteristics of the Whole Plate Fin Tube Cooler

Abstract

In order to enhance the cooling efficiency of plate-fin motor cooler, two kinds of plate-fin-tubes were proposed, which named triangle-wing and convex fin-tube. The heat transfer characteristics of fin-tubes are investigated via numerical simulation and experiment. The result showed that the k-ε turbulence model is highly accurate in simulation of cooler, and the deviation of average heat transfer coefficient and frictional pressure drop between experiment and simulation is within 10% and 8%, respectively. Both of the triangle-wing and convex fin-tube can increase the heat transfer efficiency of plate-fin cooler. The frictional pressure drop also has an approximate variation trend. In addition, the pressure drop of convex-fin-tube is smaller than triangle-wing-fin-tube on the premise of the same heat transfer coefficient, so the heat transfer performance of convex-fin-tube is the best.