Aj. Fowler et al., OPTIMAL GEOMETRIC ARRANGEMENT OF STAGGERED PLATES IN FORCED-CONVECTION, International journal of heat and mass transfer, 40(8), 1997, pp. 1795-1805
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.