EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF A LOUVERED FIN AND ELLIPTICAL TUBE COMPACT HEAT EXCHANGER

Abstract

In the present work, an experimental investigation is carried out to analyze the heat transfer characteristics of a louvered fin and elliptical tube compact heat exchanger used as a radiator in an internal combustion engine. Experiments are conducted by positioning the radiator in an open-loop wind tunnel. A total of 24 sets of air, water flow rate combinations are tested, and the temperature drops of air and water were acquired. A numerical analysis has been carried out using Fluent software (a general purpose computational fluid dynamics simulation tool) for three chosen data from the experiments. The numerical air-side temperature drop is compared with those of the experimental values. A good agreement between the experimental and numerical results validates the present computational methodology.

Keywords

Dates

  • Submission Date2012-02-20
  • Revision Date2012-06-25
  • Acceptance Date2012-07-20

DOI Reference

10.2298/TSCI120220146P

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