3D CFD Simulation of Thermal Hydraulic Performances on Louvered Fin Automotive Heat Exchangers

This study deals with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) studies of the interactions between the air flow and louvered fins which equipped the automotive heat exchangers. 3D numerical simulation results are obtained by using the ANSYS Fluent 13.0 code and compared to experimental data. The paper studies the effect of louver angle and louver pitch geometrical parameters, on overall thermal hydraulic performances of louvered fins. The comparison between CFD simulations and experimental data show that established 3-D CFD model gives a good agreement. The validation agrees, with about 7% of deviation respectively of friction and Colburn factors to experimental results. As first, it is found that the louver angle has a strong influence on the heat transfer rate. Then, louver angle and louver pitch variation of the louvers and their effects on thermal hydraulic performances are studied. In addition to this study, it is shown that the second half of the fin takes has a significant contribution on pressure drop increase without any increase in heat transfer.

Authors:

• S. Ben Saad
• F. Ayad
• H. Damotte

Keywords:

• CFD simulations
• automotive heat exchanger
• performances.

References:

[1] Tafti D.K., Wang G., Lin. W., Flow transition in a multilouvered fin
array. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 2000, 43, 901-
919.
[2] Webb R.L., Trauger P., Flow structured in the louvered fin heat
exchanger geometry, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 1991, 4
205-217.
[3] Achaichia A., Cowell T. A., Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop
Characteristics of Flat Tube and Louvered Plate Fin Surfaces.
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, 1988,vol. 1: p. 147-157
[4] Hsieh C-T, Jang J-Y, 3-D thermal hydraulic analysis for louver fin
heat exchangers with variable louver angle. Applied Thermal
Engineering 2006. 26 1629-163.
[5] Jaiboon W, Phoocharoen N, Okawa S, Chareonsuk J. Simulation of
Flow Aerodynamics and Heat Transfer in a Plate-Fin Radiator. 13th
Annual Symposium on Computational Science and Engineering
(ANSCSE 13).