Numerical investigation of natural convection for vertical flat plate with fins

Abstract

A finite-volume-based computational study of steady laminar natural convection from a finned isothermal vertica l plate with different fin arrays has been carried out to d etermine the heat transfer augmentation factor with different fi n aspect ratio, fin spacing and inclination of fin. Heat tra nsfer behaviors with the fins have been analyzed by exami ning variations of the local and average Nusselt numbers in twodimensional flow. Four different fin arrays heights (H = 6, 12, 18, 24 mm) and four different angles of inclina tion ( θ = 45°, 60°,75°, 90°) are considered. In order to understand the heat transfer characteri stics of this problem, a total of 96 cases for each of conductive and nonconductive fins are considered. It is found that s ignificant heat transfer augmentation is obtained for conduct ive (20% higher augmentation factor when the fin aspect rati o is 6, and angle of inclination is 60° and pitch-to-length rat io is 0.2) and non-conductive fins (10% higher augmentation fa ctor, at fin aspect ratio of 8, angle of inclination at 45° and pitch-tolength ratio at 0.5). A general correlation has bee n d veloped to predict the average Nusselt number for fin array s s a function of different fin configurations.