Heat transfer in a conjugate heat exchanger with a wavy fin surface

A three-dimensional computational study on conjugate heat exchangers was co nducted. Attention was specifically directed towards studying extended surf aces used to increase heat transfer. The strategy adopted in the present in vestigation of forced convection in a flow passage was to use the finite vo lume method. Our implementation incorporated a SIMPLE-based semi-implicit s olution algorithm which was applied to working equations formulated within the single-phase catalog. The analysis allowed for marked changes in thermo dynamic and flow properties. To justify using the proposed numerical model to simulate this conjugate heat transfer problem, we considered first a hea t exchanger with a plane fin simply because experimental data are available for comparison. This validation study was followed by a study of how a new ly designed fin pattern can provide increased heat transfer. The efficiency has been judged by considering several aspects, namely the span-averaged p ressure drop, Nusselt number and heat flux. To better illuminate the flow a nd heat transfer characteristics in a flow passage bounded by two fins havi ng wavy geometries, we have plotted solutions in a three-dimensional format . (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.