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The Experimental and Numerical Investigations on Louvered Fin-and-Tube

Heat Exchanger with Variable Geometrical Parameters

Article  in  Journal of Thermal Science and Engineering Applications · December 2016

DOI: 10.1115/1.4035449

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 Experimental and Numerical
Investigations on Louvered Fin-and-
Tube Heat Exchanger With Variable
Geometrical Parameters
Kourosh Javaherdeh1
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Guilan,
Rasht 4199613776, Iran
e-mail: Javaherdeh@guilan.ac.ir
Ahmad Vaisi
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Guilan,
Rasht 4199613776, Iran
e-mail: Vaisi@phd.guilan.ac.ir
Rouhollah Moosavi
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Yasouj University,
Yasouj 7591874831, Iran
e-mail: Moosavi@yu.ac.ir
Mehdi Esmaeilpour
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering,
The University of Iowa,
Iowa City, IA 52242
e-mail: esmaeilpour.mehdi@gmail.com
The effects of geometrical arrangement on the heat transfer and
pressure drop characteristics in compact louvered fin-and-tube
heat exchangers were studied experimentally and numerically
along with e  NTU method. Different geometrical parameters
including louver angle, louver pitch, louver number, the nonlou-
vered inlet and exit fin length, and redirection of fluid flow are
considered to determine their effects on the flow field. The study is
performed for different louver angles varying from hL ¼ 12 to 60
deg, and optimal heat transfer rate is obtained at louver angle of
hL ¼ 28deg. Also, it is found that increasing the louver number,
NL , on the fin surface enhances the heat transfer performance. It
is shown that the average Nusselt number is increased as the lou-
ver pitch is decreased and its optimum value is obtained at
Lp ¼ 0:9 mm. However, comparing to the effect of louver number,
the louver pitch has a small effect on the performance of the heat
exchanger. Additionally, the optimum values of nonlouvered inlet
and exit fin length and redirection length of fin are obtained with
different flow conditions. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4035449]
Keywords: compact heat exchanger, pressure drop, louvered fins,
Nusselt number, experimental, numerical
Introduction
Due to heat exchange between a liquid and gas, heat exchangers
are widely used in various industrial units such as thermal power
plants, air conditioning, heating systems, food industries, and
chemical industries to meet the demands for saving energy and
1
Corresponding author.
Contributed by the Heat Transfer Division of ASME for publication in the
JOURNAL OF THERMAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS. Manuscript received
April 14, 2016; final manuscript received October 29, 2016; published online
February 7, 2017. Assoc. Editor: Wei Li.
Journal of Thermal Science and Engineering Applications
Copyright VC 2017 by ASME
Downloaded From: http://thermalscienceapplication.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/pdfaccess.ashx?url=/data/journals/jtsebv/935926/ on 02/19/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.as
resources. Over the past decades, engineers have put efforts to
attain progress in the development of high-performance heat
exchanger and changed the simple fin-and-tube heat exchanger
with plain fins into advanced compact heat exchangers with slit or
louver fins. Therefore, various engineering techniques have been
devised to enhance the heat transfer rate along with saving up
more energy and reducing the cost and size of heat transfer devi-
ces. Louvered fins provide a number of interrupted surfaces and
through interaction with the boundary layer form a complex flow
pattern that increases the heat transfer rate. Therefore, investigat-
ing the effect of fin geometry on the fluid flow and heat transfer is
extremely important to design efficient automobile radiators.
There are many experimental and numerical studies concerning
the simulation of louvered fin-and-tube heat exchangers with
focus on the optimization of the device geometry. Among these
researches, Wang et al. [1] tested several models of compact heat
exchangers of finned tube with louver fins and obtained empirical
relations for the coefficients of Colburn and friction. It was
observed that the proposed correlation showed 95.5% agreement
with experimental findings for the Colburn coefficient and 90.8%
agreement with experimental findings for the friction coefficient.
Wang et al. [2] also examined the heat transfer and pressure drop
in different models of louvered fin and for different fin pitches in
a condenser and showed that smaller fin pitch would result in
higher friction factors while it had no significant effect on heat
transfer performance. A finned tube heat exchanger with louvered
flat fin was studied numerically for both circular and oval tubes
[3], and it was found that for a fixed louver length and louver
angle, the oval-tube fin had lower pressure loss and better heat
transfer rate comparing to the circular-tube fin. Also, in case of
circular-tube fin, heat transfer enhanced by increasing the louver
angle. Fluid flow efficiency was examined in a series of louvered
fins by Zhang and Tafti [4], indicating that the geometry of the
fins has a great impact on the fluid flow especially at low Reyn-
olds numbers. The authors also found that thickness ratio and fin
pitch decreased the efficiency while louver angle and Reynolds
number improved the fluid flow efficiency. Specially, louver angle
had stronger effect on efficiency than the fin pitch, and for small
louver angles, the louver thickness effect on efficiency was also
significant. A dye-line flow visualization technique was used to
investigate the relationship between the flow alignment and geo-
metrical parameters in louvered fin heat exchanger [5,6]. It was
shown that the flow remains laminar and steady for Reynolds
number up to 1300. By conducting series of experimental tests
with a number of large-scale louver models with varied fin pitch
and louver angles over a range of Reynolds numbers, a method
was obtained for evaluating the spatially resolved louver heat
transfer coefficients.
In a numerical study, Leu et al. [7] studied the performance of
the fin-and-tube heat exchanger having oval and circular configu-
ration with different geometrical parameters such as louver pitch,
louver angle, and louver length. The results showed that both pres-
sure coefficient and heat transfer rate increase for lower louver
pitches and higher louver lengths, respectively. Joardar and Jacobi
[8] examined the geometric effect of delta-wing type vortex gen-
erators on louver fins performance. For both wet and dry condi-
tions, heat transfer rate and pressure drop were obtained at full
scale, and it was observed that vortex generation enhanced the
thermal-hydraulic performance of the fin in a compact heat
exchanger for automotive systems. Hsieh and Jang [9] investi-
gated the impact of the louver angle in the compact heat
exchanger of fin-and-tube heat exchanger for five different louver
arrangements of increased or decreased louver angle, and it was
observed that the maximum heat transfer improvement would be
attained for the case of increase in the louver angle with step
4 deg while the case with decrease in the louver angle with step
4 deg had lowest pressure drop. Şahin et al. [10] used a 3D numer-
ical simulation to analyze the effect of the fin angle on heat trans-
fer rate and pressure drop in finned tube heat exchanger. For
different fin angles varying from 5 to 30 deg, it was shown that the
JUNE 2017, Vol. 9 / 024501-1
 fin angle of 30 deg leads to maximum heat transfer rate. Another
geometrical change in louvered fin heat exchanger was using delta
winglets close to the tube wall [11,12]. Wen and Ho [13] designed
three fins including wavy fin, plate fin, and compounded fin for
compact heat exchangers and determined friction factor, heat
transfer coefficient, and Colburn factor for different Reynolds
numbers. Comparing the experimental results for these three dif-
ferent fins, the authors concluded that compounded fin had better
performance than the other two fins. Vaisi et al. [14] examined the
influence of geometric parameters such as louver pitch, louver
arrangement, and number of louver regions in symmetrical and
asymmetrical compact heat exchangers and concluded that lou-
vered fins with symmetrical pattern had better heat transfer rate
and lower pressure drop than the asymmetrical arrangement.
Review of the literature shows that numerical analysis has not
been carried out about the effect of different parameters such as
nonlouvered inlet and exit fin length, redirection length of fin, the
number of louver, and pitch angle of the louver simultaneously to
see the effects of all these parameters together [15–20]. Therefore,
in this work, a model of fin-and-tube heat exchanger has been
manufactured and tested experimentally. After comparing the
experimental results of cases with numerical simulations, several
models were studied numerically to check the effect of each of
geometrical variables on the performance of heat exchangers. A
computer simulation program based on e  NTU method is also
developed to estimate the air-side outlet temperature and pressure
drop, and the numerical results are compared with results obtained
by e  NTU method.
Mathematical Analysis
Physical Model. The physical model of the test radiator along
with sectional front and top views is depicted in Fig. 1 to show the
arrangement of fins and tube in the test core. Due to the periodic
and symmetric arrangement of the test core, only one fin pitch in
the spanwise direction of air flow and one water tube pitch in the
lateral direction are considered as the computational domain.
The structure and the geometrical parameters of the louvered
fin are shown in Fig. 2, where x, y, and z are streamwise, normal,
Fig. 1 General view of finned tube compact heat exchanger
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and spanwise coordinates, respectively. For this case, the height,
length, and breadth of the computational domain are 1.25 mm,
1.25 mm, and 4.58 mm, respectively. According to Fig. 2, each fin
element between the water tubes consists of an inlet louver and an
exit louver with opposite directions. The middle surfaces of two
neighboring fins are chosen as the lower and upper boundaries of
the louver element. As the side boundary conditions, the midsec-
tion of the water tubes in two sides of the louver element is con-
sidered as the spanwise right and left boundaries of the
computational domain. Periodic conditions are applied on both
top and bottom sides of the computational domain as well as on
the sides’ boundary conditions. Moreover, the computational
domain is extended by 5Fp in entrance length upstream of the lou-
ver element and 15Fp downstream of the louver element to avoid
inlet and exit effects of fluid flow, and the fully developed bound-
ary conditions can be used at the outlet.
Governing Equations. The present work under consideration
is assumed to be steady three-dimensional, and the governing
equations including mass, momentum, and energy equations can
be obtained based on the following assumptions:
 The flow is laminar, continuous, and incompressible.
 The working fluid is air in standard conditions.
 The properties of the air are constant and not subject to
temperature.
 The buoyancy force and viscous heating are negligible.
Therefore, the governing equations of the air can be established
as follows:
Mass conservation
@
ðqui Þ ¼ 0 (1)
@xi
Momentum equation
  
@ @ @uj @ui @p
qu u
ð i jÞ ¼ l þ  (2)
@xi @xi @xi @xj @xj
Transactions of the ASME
 Fig. 2 General view of louvered fin

Energy equation Q ¼ quin Ac Cp ðTa;out  Ta;in Þ (5)

 
@ @ @T where Ta;in is the inlet air temperature, Ta;out is the outlet air tem-
ðqCp ui T Þ ¼ k (3)
@xi @xi @xi perature, and Ac is the cross section air flow area of the air side.
Using the logarithmic mean temperature difference (LMTD)
where ui is the mean component of the velocity, T is the tempera- method, the convection coefficient can be determined as
ture, p is the pressure, q is the density, l is the dynamic viscosity, Q
Cp is the specific heat, and k is the thermal conductivity. Equation hc ¼ (6)
of continuity, momentum, and energy is solved numerically to ADTm
obtain the flow and temperature fields. where DTm is the log mean temperature difference (LMTD), and
it is defined as
Boundary Conditions. Due to the elliptic governing equations, ðDTout  DTin Þ ðTf ;in  Ta;in Þ  ðTf ;out  Ta;out Þ
it is essential to consider boundary conditions at all boundaries in DTm ¼ ¼   (7)
the computational domain. At the solid surface of the louvered fin, lnðDTout =DTin Þ ln ðTf ;in  Ta;in Þ=ðTf ;out  Ta;out Þ
the no-slip boundary conditions with zero speed and constant wall
with Tf ;in as the fin temperature at the inlet, Tf ;out as the fin tem-
temperature Tw ¼ 353 K are specified. As the inlet boundary con-
perature at the outlet, and A as the total surface area. The addi-
dition, a uniform flow velocity of uin ¼ 12 m=s is established at
tional parameter required to determine the heat transfer behavior
the 5Fp in entrance length upstream of the louver element. Also,
is the Nusselt number, Nu, which is defined as
the inlet boundary condition for the temperature is set as
Tin ¼ 293 K. As the outlet boundary condition located at 15Fp hc Fp
downstream of the louver element, Neumann boundary conditions Nu ¼ (8)
k
defined as the streamwise gradient of zero is established for all the
variables. Moreover, for two sides of the louver domain, the wall where Fp is the fin pitch. The heat transfer and pressure drop char-
boundary condition and, for upper and lower boundaries, the peri- acteristics on the air side are also calculated using e  NTU
odic boundary conditions are imposed as boundary conditions in method. The number of transfer units (NTU) can be calculated
the computational domain. using the following equations:
UA
Definition of Performance Parameters. The local pressure NTU ¼ (9)
Cmin
drop can be presented in terms of the dimensionless pressure coef-
ficient, Cf , defined as Q_
e¼ (10)
_
Q max
Dp
Cf ¼ (4) Cmin
1 2 lf Cr ¼ (11)
qu Cmax
2 in Dhf

where Dp is the pressure drop of the air side, uin is the inlet veloc- where
ity, lf is the fin length, and Dhf is the hydraulic diameter for cross
Q_
section flow. The heat transfer rate on the air side can be calcu- UA ¼ (12)
lated as follows: DTm

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 Cmin ¼ minðCh ; Cc Þ (13) Table 1 Geometrical parameters of the louvered fin-and-tube
heat exchanger
Cmax ¼ maxðCh ; Cc Þ (14)
 Parameters
Qmax ¼ Cmin ðTh;in  Tc;in Þ (15)
Tube material Aluminum
For a pure unmixed cross-flow configuration having an infinite Tube surface area (mm2) 2:1  22:93
Tube thickness (mm) 0.28
number of passages, the corresponding e-NTU relationship is [21] Core width (mm) 383
  n h i o Number of tube rows in the airflow direction 1
1
e ¼ 1  exp ðNTUÞ0:22 exp Cr ðNTUÞ0:78  1 (16) Fin material Aluminum
Cr Fin thickness (mm) 0.07
Fin height (mm) 9.17
Fin depth (mm) 25
Louver length (mm) 7.4
Experimental Validation Louver pitch (mm) 1
Beside the numerical simulation of fluid flow, heat transfer, and Louvers per tube row 18
Louver angle (deg) 24
pressure drop characteristics of heat exchangers using CFD tool, a
Header to header length (mm) 320
comparison of the results with experimental data is carried for a Fpm 800
few cases to validate the numerical simulations. For this purpose, Air flow redirection length (mm) 2.5
an aluminum model of louvered fin-and-tube heat exchanger was
made and tested in a wind tunnel (Fig. 3). The geometrical param-
eters of the heat exchanger are shown in Table 1, and the experi- Table 2 The variation of outlet air temperature with inlet air
mental setup of the wind tunnel facility and its detailed velocity
description were presented in Ref. [14]. Experiments are con-
ducted for a number of operating situations and the results are Inlet air velocity (m/s) TExperimental ( C) TNumerical ( C) TeNTU ( C)
compared with the numerical and e  NTU simulation, as shown
in Tables 2 and 3. In these tables, the outlet temperature and pres- 6.04 49.86 51.61 48.22
sure of air for different inlet air velocities are compared and a rea- 8.05 46.13 47.42 44.98
10.06 43.59 44.06 41.51
sonable agreement is attained between experimental, numerical,
12.02 41.53 41.44 39.63
and e  NTU results. According to this table, by increasing the 14.03 39.47 39.42 37.94
inlet velocity, the average of outlet flow (air) temperature 16.04 37.92 37.68 36.68
decreases almost linearly. In all three simulations, the mass flow
rate of water is m_ ¼ 40 l=min, the inlet water temperature is
T ¼ 80  C, and the inlet air temperature is T ¼ 20  C. A compari- Table 3 The variation of nondimensional outlet pressure drop
son of the results shows that the error between the experimental with inlet air velocity
and numerical simulations is a little larger for lower air velocities,
Inlet air velocity (m/s) Cf ;Experimental Cf ;Numerical Cf ;eNTU
and it decreases in higher air velocities (Table 4). Due to the good
agreement obtained based on the results in this table, several mod- 6.04 0.21 0.22 0.24
els were simulated numerically with different geometries and 8.05 0.31 0.33 0.35
10.06 0.43 0.46 0.46
12.02 0.57 0.62 0.59
14.03 0.73 0.80 0.75
16.04 1 1 1

Table 4 The variation of nondimensional outlet air temperature

with different louver angles

Louver angle (deg) TNumerical TeNTU

12 1.00000 1.00000
16 0.97499 0.95010
20 0.96482 0.91998
24 0.95294 0.89882
28 0.93493 0.88388
32 0.92145 0.87307
36 0.91734 0.86548
40 0.90254 0.86065
44 0.89514 0.85812
50 0.88954 0.85720
54 0.87251 0.85536
60 0.86124 0.85307

boundary conditions to show the effects of different geometrical

parameters on the performance of the louvered fin heat exchanger.

Results and Discussion

In this section, the effect of different geometrical parameters on
the thermal performance of a heat exchanger has been studied
Fig. 3 The wind tunnel test of finned tube heat exchanger using both numerical and e  NTU methods. The temperature and

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 pressure drop through the air side of heat exchanger are predicted
using the equations formulated in this work.

The Effect of Louver Angle. To show different parameters

including Nusselt number and pressure drop coefficient in the
same figure, these parameters are nondimensionalized using their
maximum value as f/fmax and shown in the scale of zero to one.
Figure 4 shows the effect of louver angle on pressure drop coeffi-
cient and Nusselt number. As it is observed in this figure, increas-
ing the louver angle will result in higher pressure drop coefficient
while the Nusselt number reduces as the louver angle increases.
For the pressure drop coefficient, it increases with small slope up
to the louver angle of hL ¼ 32deg, and after this point, there is a
sharp increase in pressure drop coefficient. For the Nusselt num-
ber also, the louver angle of hL ¼ 32deg is the key point. As it is
observed in Fig. 4, the Nusselt number is decreasing up to the lou-
ver angle of hL ¼ 32deg, and after this louver angle, no noticeable
change will be observed in the Nusselt number. Therefore, the
louver angles less than hL ¼ 32deg are acceptable since they are
associated with less pressure drop coefficients. However, it should
be noticed that most of heat exchangers work in air-polluted envi-
ronment including dust particles. So, the louver angles less than
hL ¼ 24deg may cause blockage between the fin blades. There-
fore, the louver angles within the range of hL ¼ 24 – 32 deg have
the best performance, and the most optimal angle can be the angle
of hL ¼ 28deg. This angle has the highest amount of energy
exchange between the fins and the fluid (air) and also the highest
mass flow through the louver fin. Figure 5 shows the contours of
temperature and pressure drop coefficient on the fin in the direc-
tion of flow for different louver angles varying from hL ¼ 12deg
to hL ¼ 60deg. By increasing the louver angle, both temperature
and pressure drop increase at the outlet of the fin. Given the expla-
nation provided for Fig. 4, the angle of hL ¼ 28deg can be the
optimum angle for louver fin. In Table 5, the results obtained
from the effectiveness (e  NTU method) are presented and com- Fig. 5 Contours at midplane of louver domain for different lou-
pared with the numerical method. ver angles: (a) temperature contours and (b) pressure coeffi-
cient contours

The Effect of Louver Pitch. The nondimensional variation of Table 5 The variation of nondimensional pressure drop with
temperature and pressure drop coefficient at different louver different louver angles
pitches and louver numbers is shown in Fig. 6. To see the effect
of louver pitch on the fluid flow and heat transfer, the louver angle Louver angle (deg) Cf ;Numerical Cf ;eNTU
is fixed as hL ¼ 28deg, and the louver pitch varies from Lp ¼ 0:9
to 1:5 mm. Considering the nonlouvered inlet and outlet fin 12 0.52008 0.58976
length, for the same length of redirection of flow region at the 16 0.53796 0.65462
20 0.55162 0.70908
24 0.58144 0.75542
28 0.60590 0.79720
32 0.62269 0.83378
36 0.67142 0.86635
40 0.70569 0.89554
44 0.76049 0.92455
50 0.85401 0.95566
54 0.89871 0.97509
60 1.00000 1.00000

Fig. 4 The nondimensional variation of Nusselt number and
pressure drop coefficient at different louver angles
middle of the fin and for fixed louver angle, the louver number,
NL , will decrease by increasing the louver pitch, which results in
lower average temperature and pressure coefficient of the outlet
flow. Generally, by decreasing the louver number (or increasing
the louver pitch), the louver surface area will reduce and the ther-
mal boundary layer will be greater, which leads to decrease in the
heat transfer rate between the solid surfaces and surrounding fluid.
Therefore, there will be less interaction between the louver sur-
face and cooling fluid, and that the outlet temperature of the air
will be higher than the case with high louver number. Unlike the
heat transfer rate, the increase of louver pitch causes the reduction
of the pressure coefficient and the pressure loss. Considering the
simulation results, the louver pitch of Lp ¼ 0:9, 1, and 1:1 mm is
acceptable as louver pitch of the fin. According to the results,

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 Fig. 7 The nondimensional variation of Nusselt number and
Fig. 6 The nondimensional variation of temperature and pres-
pressure drop coefficient at different nonlouvered inlet lengths
sure drop coefficient at different louver pitches

Table 6 The variation of nondimensional outlet air temperature

with different louver pitches

Louver number Louver pitch (mm) TNumerical TeNTU

26 0.71 1.00000 1.00000

20 0.90 0.97499 0.96443
18 1.00 0.96482 0.95241
16 1.10 0.95294 0.93991
14 1.25 0.93493 0.92670

Table 7 The variation of nondimensional pressure drop with

different louver pitches

Louver number Louver pitch (mm) Cf ; Numerical Cf ; eNTU

26 0.71 1.00000 1.00000

20 0.90 0.97823 0.96443
18 1.00 0.96170 0.95078
16 1.10 0.94226 0.93587
14 1.25 0.92638 0.90891

louver pitch Lp ¼ 0:9 mm is selected as the optimal pitch for lou-

ver fin. Moreover, the theoretical analysis using e  NTU method
Fig. 8 Contours at midplane of louver domain for different
is also performed for this case, and the results are presented and redirection length with fixed louver number: (a) temperature
compared in Tables 6 and 7. contours and (b) pressure coefficient contours

The Effect of Nonlouvered Inlet Length. The effect of the

nonlouvered inlet length of the fin on heat transfer rate and pres-
sure drop coefficient is plotted in Fig. 7. In this case, the number
of louvers is changed since the louver pitch is fixed and the length
of nonlouvered inlet and outlet regions, S1 , is changed. It is found
that increasing the nonlouvered inlet and outlet fin lengths reduces
the Nusselt number of outlet flow and pressure drop coefficient.
Indeed, with an increase in the nonlouvered inlet fin length, the
number of louvers is reduced, thereby reducing the louver surface,
leading to a reduction in heat exchange between the solid surfaces
and cooling air. However, due to the lack of the strength of the fin
for smaller lengths such as S1 ¼ 0:25 mm, the nonlouvered length
of S1 ¼ 1:25 mm can be chosen as the optimal length of nonlou-
vered inlet for louver fin.
The Effect of Redirection Length. In this part, the effect of
the redirection length, S2 , of the louver on the fin performance is
presented as the contours of temperature and pressure coefficient
through Figs. 8 and 9. The simulations are carried for two differ-
ent setup cases; in the first case, the louver number is fixed and by
increasing the redirection length, the louver pitch will decrease
(see Fig. 8). In the second case, the louver pitch is fixed and by
increasing the redirection length, the louver number will decrease
through the fin length (see Fig. 9). In the first case, an increase in
redirection length of the fin leads to the reduction of outlet tem-
perature and increase of pressure drop coefficient. According to
the results and considering the effects of both heat transfer rate
and pressure drop, the most appropriate redirection length of the
fin is nearly S2 ¼ 2:5 mm. For the second case, the nondimen-
sional variation of Nusselt number and pressure drop coefficient
versus redirection length are shown in Fig. 9. It is observed that
better performance of the fin will be obtained for smaller redirec-
tion length of the fin. This result is also obtained for the

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 with remarkable impact on the heat transfer and pressure drop in a
heat exchanger are louver angle and louver number.

Nomenclature
A¼ total surface area (m2 )
Ac ¼ cross section air flow (m2 )
C¼ heat capacity rate (J=kg K)
Cp ¼ specific heat (J=kg K)
Cr ¼ capacity rate ratio
Dhf ¼ hydraulic diameter (mm)
Fh ¼ fin height (mm)
Fp ¼ fin pitch (mm)
hc ¼ heat transfer coefficient (W=m2 K)
Hf ¼ radiator height (mm)
k¼ thermal conductivity (W=m K)
lf ¼ fin length (mm)
Lf ¼ radiator width (mm)
LL ¼ louver height (mm)
LP ¼ louver pitch (mm)
LR ¼ distance of inlet and redirection region (mm)
Fig. 9 The nondimensional variation of Nusselt number and LMTD ¼ logarithmic mean temperature difference (K)
pressure drop coefficient at different redirection lengths with NL ¼ louver number
constant louver pitch NTU ¼ number of transfer unit
Nu ¼ Nusselt number
p¼ pressure (Pa)
temperature distribution and pressure drop coefficient in the fin in Dp ¼ pressure drop (Pa)
the flow direction, respectively. Therefore, the length of S2 ¼
2:5 mm can be chosen as the most optimal for redirection length
of fin in louvered fins. Greek Symbols
e¼ effectiveness
hL ¼ louver angle (deg)
Conclusion l¼ dynamic viscosity (Ns=m2 )
In this work, the experimental and numerical simulations of q¼ density (kg=m3 )
louvered fin heat exchanger were performed, and the effect of the
geometric parameters of louvered fin on the heat transfer and pres- Subscripts
sure drop of compact heat exchanger was investigated experimen-
a¼ air
tally and numerically. Variable parameters including louver
c¼ cold
number, louver angle, louver pitch, the nonlouvered inlet and out-
f¼ fin
let lengths of the fin, and redirection length were considered in
h¼ hot
this study. For validation, few experimental tests were conducted
in ¼ inlet
in the wind tunnel facility, and the results were compared with the
max ¼ maximum
numerical simulations and a good agreement was obtained.
min ¼ minimum
The conclusions can be drawn as follows:
out ¼ outlet
(1) Increasing the louver angle leads to an increase in the flow
speed, and the boundary layer on the louver does not grow References
much, leading to an increase in the heat transfer and pres-
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