EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL STUDIES ON THE THERMAL CONI ACT RESISTANCE OF A FIN TUBE HEAT EXCHANGER

• Main Author: YAU, KAR HING
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/id/eprint/21359/1/2014%20-MECHANICAL%20-%20EXPERIMENTAL%20AND%20NUMERICAL%20STUDIES%20ON%20THE%20THERMAL%20CONTRACT%20RESISTANCE%20OF%20A%20FIN%20TUBE%20HEAT%20EXCHANGER%20-%20YAU%20KAR%20HING.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/id/eprint/21359/

This work presents the investigation of the !henna! contact resistance in a fin-tube heat exchanger. Experiments and numerical simulations were conducted to understand the mechanism of thennal contact resistance between the tins and the tubes. Heat transfer and pressure drop experiments for 9.52 mm fin-tube heat exchangers were conducted in a vacuum chamber with water-to-water, steady state loop for different bullet expansion ratios from 1.046 to 1.059. The heat imbalance of the experiments was kept within 3%.The overall electrical resistance of a fin-tube heat exchanger for each bullet expansion ratio was also obtained by electrical measurements and compared with the thermal measurements. An analogy of the electrical and thennal shape factor was investigated by experiment and numerical simulation to obtain an appropriate tin shape factor.