OPTIMAL GEOMETRIC ARRANGEMENT OF STAGGERED PLATES IN FORCED-CONVECTION

This paper reports the results of an experimental and numerical study of the optimal geometric arrangement of staggered parallel plates in a fixed volume with forced convection heat transfer. The objective of t he geometric optimization effort is to maximize the total heat transfe r rate between the given volume and the given external flow, when the maximum temperature at a point inside the volume cannot exceed a certa in level. The geometric arrangement was varied systematically, by chan ging the spacing between plates, the number of plates installed in one row, the plate swept length, and the degree to which the plates are s taggered. In the first part of the study, it is demonstrated experimen tally that there exists an optimal spacing between two adjacent row of plates. Experimental results are reported for air in the range 1000 l ess than or equal to Re-L less than or equal to 6000, where L is the s wept length of the fixed volume. In the second part of the study, exte nsive numerical results support and extend these findings to 100 less than or equal to Re-L less than or equal to 10 000. In addition, it is shown that there is an optimal way to stagger the plates. In the conc luding part of the paper, the optimal spacing and maximum heat transfe r rate results are correlated based on the theoretical method of inter secting the two asymptotes (small spacing, large spacing) of the geome tric arrangement. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.