Streamline Fin Structure Design and Optimization Based on Simulation

Heat exchangers have been widely applied in the fields of aerospace, petrochemical, air separation and transportation due to high heat transfer efficiency. Fins, as the main heat transfer structure of plate fin heat exchangers, greatly affect the efficiency of heat exchangers. Streamline fins including lozenge, airfoil and conical fins, have been designed to optimize the serrated fin in this paper. FLUENT software has been applied to simulate and analyze the changes of their flow and heat transfer characteristics, and evaluate the fin performance. The comprehensive performances of five types of fin channels, formed from these three kinds of streamlined fins, have been analyzed and compared in order to improve heat transfer and decrease flow resistance. The research results show that asymmetric airfoil can enhance fluid disturbance and heat transfer, the NACA 0024 airfoil fin has the best heat transfer performance while reducing resistance by 21.2% – 25.2%, lozenge fin has the highest comprehensive performance and can reduce resistance by 50% – 53.5% although its heat transfer performance has decreased. According to the research results, these streamline fins will play important roles in enhancing heat transfer of heat exchanger application.