Heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop for fin-and-tube compact heat exchangers with wavy rectangular winglet-type vortex generators

In the current work, heat transfer enhancement and pressure loss penalty for fin-and-tube compact heat exchangers with the wavy-up and wavy-down rectangular winglets as special forms of winglet are numerically investigated in a relatively low Reynolds number flow. The rectangular winglets were used with a particular wavy form for the purpose of enhancement of air side heat transfer performance of fin-and-tube compact heat exchangers. The effect of Reynolds numbers from 400 to 800 and angle of attack of 30° of wavy rectangular winglets are also examined. The effects of using the wavy rectangular winglet, conventional rectangular winglet configuration and without winglet as baseline configuration, on the heat transfer characteristics and flow structure are studied and analyzed in detail for the inline tube arrangements. The results showed that the wavy rectangular winglet can significantly improve the heat transfer performance of the fin-and-tube compact heat exchangers with a moderate pressure loss penalty. In addition, the numerical results have shown that the wavy winglet cases have significant effect on the heat transfer performance and also, this augmentation is more important for the case of the wavy-up rectangular winglet configuration.