Conventional sources of energy have been depleting at an alarming rate, which makes future sustainable development of energy use very difficult. Thus, heat transfer enhancement technology plays an important role and it has been widely applied to many applications as in refrigeration, automotive, process industry, solar energy heater, etc. Convective heat transfer can be enhanced passively by changing flow geometry, boundary conditions or by increasing thermal conductivity of the fluid. Another possibility for increasing heat transfer with gas is to employ extended surfaces. In this paper a numerical investigation is carried out on forced convection in circular tubes with septa heated by constant fluxes and characterized by different shapes. When gas flows in a tube, septa with one or more openings can be used as fins. Furthermore, when the openings are arranged to give a spiral motion around the cylinder axis wall-fluid contact area increases. As a consequence the presence of the septa may significantly augment pressure drops. The fluid is air and properties are function of temperature. Septa of the same material of the tube are introduced and several shapes and arrangements are analyzed as well as different Reynolds numbers, baffle spacings and heat fluxes applied on the external surface. The investigation is accomplished by means of the commercial code Fluent. A k-e turbulence model is used with enhanced wall treatment options. Results are presented in terms of temperature and velocity fields, local and average heat transfer coefficients, friction factors and pressure drops for different values of heat flux, Reynolds numbers and baffle spacings. The aim of this study is to find the shape and arrangement of septa such to give high heat transfer coefficients and low pressure drops.
Experimental and numerical investigation of forced convection in a double skin façade by using nodal network approach for Istanbul
