Inaccuracy of Heat Transfer Characteristics for Pin Fins Considering the Influence of Heat Radiation

Abstract

Pin fins are widely applied in heat exchanger industry. The heat transfer characteristics of pin fins can be found in many textbooks and handbooks related to heat transfer or heat exchanger. However, most heat transfer experts recognized from their own experiences that the heat radiation effect equation contained the fourth order exponential of temperature and the emissivity of oxidized metal are higher, the inaccuracy of heat transfer rate might be higher while ignoring the effect of heat radiation. In this study, numerical simulation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code was conducted to verify the heat transfer characteristics of pin fins. It is found that the error of heat transfer rate generated by ignoring heat radiation will be as high as 45 % while heat convection coefficient is 10 (Wm-2K-1 ) associated with the emissivity of fin surface is 1.0. It also revealed the heat radiation effect cannot be neglected for pin fins, especially for the application under high emissivity and low heat convection coefficient conditions.