Performance Study of Fins and Tube Heat Exchanger with Different Fin Geometry

In various engineering devices, a considerable amount of thermal energy has to be dissipated through a small area using extended surfaces referred to as fins. The insufficient rate of thermal energy dissipation in heat exchangers has created a high demand for more powerful engines in smaller hood spaces. For this reason, a two- phased study was carried out to examine the relationship between varying fin shapes and their heat transfer performance, considering three selected geometric shapes namely, rectangular, triangular, and trapezoidal. The first phase (experimental) was used to analyze the performance of rectangular fins and Tube Heat Exchanger (HE) using car radiator while the second phase (numerical) was used to investigate all the selected fin geometries while an experimental test rig was developed with commercially available car radiator. A 1.5kW electrical heater was used to heat the water and circulated using 0.5 HP centrifugal pumps and gate valve with varying coolant of 0.1-0.3 Kg/s flow rate was used. The result indicates that experimental and numerical heat loss across the various fin geometries decreases as the mass flow rate decreases. Performance analysis of the fins and tube heat exchanger has shown that heat loss for trapezoidal fins and tube heat exchangers are higher when compared with the other fins geometry.