Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of Typical Air Cooler Finned Tubes

Abstract

The heat transfer and pressure drop performance of heat exchangers fabricated from helically wrapped finned tubes with an equilateral triangular pitch arrangement are reported for one through five rows. Two finned tube types were tested, one with a “T” foot and the other with an overlapped “L” foot. The dimensions of both finned tubes were similar and were typical of those used in air-cooling applications. The tube diameter was 25.4 mm; the fin height was 15.87 mm; the fin number was 0.41/mm; and the fin-tip clearance was 6.35 mm. The fin base thickness was 0.38 mm and was tapered to half the base thickness at the fin outside diameter. No difference in the thermal performance of the two finned tube types could be detected. Both the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop were found to increase with the number of tube rows. These results were then compared to other published data.