An experimental study on heat transfer enhancement for porous heat exchange in rectangular duct

Abstract EN

Forced convection heat transfer of air in porous rectangular duct was investigated experimentally .

The pad consist of (zig-zag ) metallic wire mesh insert with two different porosities ( ) namely ( 0.97 ) and ( 0.

99) .The experiments were carried out for Reynolds number (7682,12497 and 17323 ) and constant heat flux (192,297 and 422 W/m2 ) .The results indicated that Nusselt number was increased with increasing Reynolds number and heat flux but decreased with increasing pad porosity .The Nusselt number in the porous duct was increased up to (144 % ) for ( = 0.

97) and (72 % ) for ( = 0.

99) when compared to clear duct at the same tested condition .

For optimization between heat transfer enhancement and pad weight added into clear duct , it is found that [ (Nuporous - Nuclear ) / weight of pad ] equal to (84.

34 ) and ( 40.

49 ) for ( = 0.

99 and = 0.

97) respectively and this is good improvement in heat transfer through porous rectangular duct and reducing size and weight of original duct .