By: A.I. Soler and K.P. Singh
Publisher: ASME
Year: 1983
Abstract: Blowers used to propel air across tube bundles generate a non-uniform flow field due to their construction details. Reduction in the heat transfer rate due to such non-uniformity is generally recognized in the commercial air cooler industry. However, the common antidote is to add sufficient heat transfer surface area to compensate for such losses.
Such an approach is unacceptable in those applications where the outlet temperature of the hot (in-tube) medium is sought to be control led precisely.
A formalism to evaluate heat transfer deqradation due to non-uniform airflow has been developed. Certain symmetry relations for cross flow heat exchangers, heretofore unavailable in the open literature, have been derived.
The solution presented here was developed to model a 4 tube pass air blast heat exchanger for the Clinch River Reactor Plant Project. This case is utilized to show how this method can be used as a design tool to select the most suitable blower construction for a particular application. A numerical example is used to illustrate the salient points of the solution.
Citation: Soler, A. & Singh, K. “Effect of Nonuniform Inlet Air Flow on Air Cooled Heat Exchanger Performance,” Proceedings of the Joint ASME-JSME Heat Transfer Conference, pp. 537-542 (1983).