Enhancement of Fin Efficiency: a New Proposal

Abstract

The heat dissipation by fins is very important in many technological systems. The thermal efficiency of fins can be improved depending on many characteristics; one of them is the surface area. This work presents a new fin shapes model used to increase the surface area, keeping the same volume. However, three different fin geometries are used (cylinder, a new fin geometry consisting of cutting cone with hemisphere and an egg (oval) shape fin). A numerical investigation is used to analyze the thermal efficiency of these three types of fins under free convection consideration. The Finite Element Method (FEM) is used as a numerical analysis in order to compute unsteady temperature distribution and heat flux on the surface, based on Ansys Ver.16.1. The new fin shape presented in this study can increase the efficiency by 4%, compared with classical types. The thermal results show that the egg fins have the best thermal efficiency. Moreover, the result is validated and approved by other researchers.