A study of heat transfer effectiveness of circular tubes with internal longitudinal fins having tapered lateral profiles

This paper presents a finite-difference based numerical simulation of steady, laminar heat transfer in circular tubes fitted with four identical longitudinal fins having tapered lateral profiles. The lateral view of the tip of each fin is a circular arc. The tube is exposed to constant heat flux. The temperature dependence of thermal conductivity and viscosity has been taken into account. The flow is assumed to be locally fully developed but thermally undeveloped. The momentum equation for the fluid and energy equations for the fluid and the tube wail with/without fins are solved iteratively and simultaneously. At each axial location, bulk velocity, bulk temperature of the fluid and Effectiveness which is an indicator of the enhancement of heat transfer due to addition of fins are calculated. A parametric study of effectiveness vs. axial distance for various combinations of fin materials and coolants reveals interesting results. The velocity profiles, friction factors and comparisons with respect to constant property solutions have also been discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.