Effect of fin pitches on the optimum heat transfer performance of crimped spiral fin-and-tube heat exchangers

This study conducted experiments on the optimized fin pitch for crimped spiral fin-and-tube heat exchangers. The experiments covered a size range of 2.4-6.5 mm, which is the manufacturing limitation for this kind of fin. The water-flow arrangement used in this experiment combined the parallel cross-flow and the counter cross-flow in a two-row configuration. Ambient air was used as the working fluid on the air-side, and hot water was used on the tube-side. The effects of fin pitches on the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop characteristics were studied. The results clearly showed that the convective heat transfer coefficient (h(0)) for a fin pitch of 2.4 mm is relatively low compared with that of other fin pitches with the same air frontal velocity. Using larger fin pitches (i.e., 4.2, 6.2, and 6.5 mm) resulted in negligible differences in the pressure drop. Moreover, this work introduces the parameter of three performances indexes, which can be expressed as the ratio of the desired output to the required input, for optimization purposes. Due to the difference in optimum fin pitch obtained by these performance indexes, an intersection analysis was conducted. The results indicated that the optimum fin pitch is 4.2 mm for this work, which could be valuable for the effective design for industrial thermal-system applications. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.