Experimental study of heat transfer and fluid flow in longitudinal rectangular-fin array located in different orientations in fluid flow

An experimental investigation has been performed to study the heat transfer, fluid flow and pressure drop characteristics of longitudinal rectangular-fin array for three different orientations of the tested model in the flow field: (i) parallel flow, (ii) impinging flow, and (iii) reverse impinging flow, to determine the optimal position for the fin array in the flow field. During the experiments, all fin array geometries were fixed. Air was the working fluid with Prandtl number 0.7. The flow regime was turbulent and the Reynolds number ranged from 7 x 10(4) to 5 x 10(5) based on the test section hydraulic diameter. The flow entered the tested section with uniform velocity and temperature profiles, and the flow pattern around the tested model was visualized. In general, it was found that for the three orientations of the tested model in the fluid flow, the parallel flow case yielded the highest heat transfer rate and the lowest pressure drop followed by the impinging flow then the reverse impinging flow cases. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.