Heat exchangers consisting of finned tubes are commonly employed in air conditioning systems, air heaters, radiators, etc. Local measurements of mass transfer coefficients on fins, obtained by Saboya and Sparrow, are very nonuniform. In the present work, an experimental apparatus was set up to measure overall heat transfer coefficients for two-row tube and plate fin heat exchangers. The obtained results, together with Shepherd’s results for one-row exchangers, are used to transform the local mass transfer coefficients into local heat transfer coefficients. A numerical two-dimensional heat transfer analysis has been performed in order to obtain the temperature distribution and fin efficiency. The influences of the Reynolds number and fin material are also analyzed.
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