Abstract
The analogy between heat and mass transfer has been used to obtain local and average heat transfer characteristics over a complete flat tube-fin element with four vortex generators (VGs) per tube. Several types of surfaces involved in heat transfer process such as fin surface mounted with VGs, its back surface (mounted without VGs) and flat tube surface are considered. The mass transfer experiments are performed using naphthalene sublimation method. The effects of the fin spacing and VG parameters such as height and attack angle on heat transfer and pressure drop are investigated. The comparisons of heat transfer enhancement with flat tube-fin element without VG enhancement under three constraints are carried out. The local Nusselt number distribution reveals that VGs can efficiently enhance the heat transfer in the region near flat tube on fin surface mounted with VGs. On its back surface the enhancement is almost the same as on the fin surface mounted with VGs but enhanced region is away from flat tube wall with some distance. Average results reveal that increasing of VG height and attack angle increases the enhancement of heat transfer and pressure drop, whereas small fin spacing causes greater increase of pressure drop. The heat transfer performance, correlations of Nusselt number and friction factor are also given.
