Pressure Drop and Heat Transfer Characteristics of Louvered Fin Heat Exchangers

Abstract

This paper presents the effect of the changes in fin geometry on pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics of louvered fin heat exchanger numerically. Three dimensional simulation using ANSYS Fluent have been conducted for six different configurations at Reynolds number ranging from 200 to 1000 based on louver pitch. The performance of this system has been evaluated by calculating pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient. The result shows that, the fin pitch and the louver pitch have a very considerable effect on pressure drop as well as heat transfer rate. It is observed that increasing the fin pitch will relatively result in an increase in heat transfer rate but at the same time, the pressure drop will decrease. On the other hand, low pressure drop and low heat transfer rate will be obtained when the louver pitch is increased. Final result shows a good agreement between experimental and numerical results of the louvered fin which is about 12%. This indicates the capability of louvered fin in enhancing the performance of heat exchangers.