Effect of fin configuration on the performance of longitudinal fin arrays

Abstract EN

Heat and fluid flows characteristics for ducted longitudinal fin arrays with different fin configurations under forced air-cooling have been investigated experimentally.

The fins are attached to a heated base plate, while their tips are insulated and fully shrouded to avoid leakage.

The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of fin configuration on thermal performance of fin arrays and pressure drop across them.

Tests are performed on all straight, all corrugated and mixed fin arrays.

The Reynolds number is ranged from 2 x 104 to 4.6 x 104, while the fin density and heat sink volume are kept unvaried.

For the heat transfer and pressure drop measurements, the mixed fin array offered the best heat transfer coefficient with the highest-pressure drop.

Over the tested range of airflow rates, the enhancement of heat transfer coefficients for the corrugated and mixed fin arrays compared to that of the straight fin array are found to be about 30% and 68%, while the pressure drops per unit longitudinal length of the fin array increase by a factor of 2.6 and 5.6 respectively.

The heat transfer results for the straight fin array fairly agreed with those reported in literature.