An Experimental Study on the Airside Performance of Fin-and-Tube Heat Exchangers Having Wide Louver Fin

Abstract

Heat transfer rate can be increased by increasing the heat transfer area. In this study, wide louver fin-and-tube heat exchangers with Pt/Pl = 1.03 were tested and compared with louver fin-and-tube heat exchanger with Pt/Pl = 0.6. Results show that heat transfer capacities of wide louver samples are larger (9.8% at one row, 13.6% at two row and 4.1% at three row) than those of conventional louver samples. Considering the area ratio of 1.78, the increase of heat transfer capacity is rather small, possibly due to the smaller heat transfer coefficient and fin efficiency of the wide louver sample. The j factor of the louver fin was 67% larger at one row, 42% larger at two row and 52% larger at three row. The f factor of the louver fin was 81% larger at one row, 63% larger at two row and 60% larger at three row. The effect of fin pitch on j and f factors are not pronounced and the j factor decreased as the number of tube row increased. Key words Wide louver fin(광폭 루버 핀), Airside performance(공기측 성능), Fin-and-tube heat exchanger(핀-관 열교환기), Heat transfer coefficient(열전달계수), Pressure drop(압력손실) †Corresponding author, E-mail: knh0001@incheon.ac.kr