Experimental Study of Natural Convection Heat Transfer From Rectangular Fin Arrays with Zigzag Arrangement

In this article natural convection heat transfer from arrays of aluminum rectangular fins with zigzag arrangement is studied experimentally. Length and height of fins are L=75 mm and H=25 mm respectively, also fin thickness and fin spacing are t=2 mm and s=6 mm. Zigzag arrangement have been made with different pitches along the fins length. Rectangular and zigzag fin arrays with 4 and 14 triangles are tested experimentally at different heat inputs, and natural convection heat transfer are investigated for each test case. Experiments are done in a thermally insulated room with specific equipment to control test conditions and measure all necessary data. It is found that natural convection heat transfer coefficient of 4 triangles zigzag fin array is increased 36-50% in comparison with rectangular fin array with 50% mass reduction. Experiments also show that by increasing number of triangles, heat transfer of zigzag fin array approaches to the rectangular fin array with 50% reduction in mass.

Keywords:

Free convection , laminar flow , zigzag fin , mass reduction , heat transfer enhancement