International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 80 (2015) 281287

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

An experimental study of the air-side performance of n-and-tube heat

exchangers having plain, louver, and semi-dimple vortex generator
conguration
Chi-Chuan Wang a,, Kuan-Yu Chen a, Jane-Sunn Liaw b, Chih-Yung Tseng b
a
b

Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
Green Energy & Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu 310, Taiwan

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 17 April 2014
Received in revised form 14 September 2014
Accepted 15 September 2014
Available online 2 October 2014
Keywords:
Fin-and-tube heat exchanger
Louver n
Vortex generator

a b s t r a c t
In this study, a comparative study of the airside performance of n-and-tube heat exchangers having
plain, louver, and semi-dimple vortex generator (VG) are made. A total of eighteen samples are made
and tested with the corresponding n pitch (Fp) being 1.6 mm and 2.0 mm and the number of tube
row (N) are 1, 2 and 4, respectively. Test results indicate that the heat transfer coefcient for N = 1 for
louver n geometry with a smaller n pitch of 1.6 mm is higher than that of semi-dimple VG and plain
n geometry. For N = 1 with a larger n pitch of 2.0 mm, the semi-dimple VG is marginally higher than
that of louver n geometry when the frontal velocity is lower than 2 m s 1. However, the trend is
reversed where the heat transfer coefcient for louver n outperforms that of semi-dimple VG when
the velocity is increased further. For the airside performance for N = 2 or N = 4, the heat transfer coefcients for louver n geometry is about 215% higher than those of semi-dimple geometry. The difference
is increased with the rising velocity and the results prevail for both n pitches. However, the difference is
smaller at a larger n pitch due to the comparatively effectively swirled motion of the semi-dimple VG.
The effect of the number of tube row on the heat transfer coefcients is negligible for louver n geometry
and is also rather small for semi-dimple VG. For the plain n geometry, the effect of tube row is also small
when N > 1. The heat transfer performance for N = 1 is different from N = 2 or N = 4 due to its inline
conguration.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Extended surfaces or ns are employed in heat exchangers for
effectively improving the overall heat transfer performance. This
is especially imperative for air-cooled heat exchanger since the
dominant thermal resistance is usually on the air side. The surfaces
can be in the form of continuous surfaces (e.g. plain, wavy) or
interrupted (louver, slit, offset, and the like). Several review articles
by Wang [12] had reported the patents of enhanced surfaces relevant to the n-and-tube heat exchangers. He reported that 90%
out of the surveyed patents were related to the interrupted surfaces. However, the interrupted surfaces showed appreciable pressure drops in association with heat transfer performance. In this
connection, one of the recent designs is via introduction of the
so-called vortex generator through which the heat transfer
Corresponding author at: EE474, 1001 University Rd., National Chiao Tung
University, Taiwan. Tel.: +886 3 5712121x55105; fax: +886 3 5720634.
E-mail address: ccwang@mail.nctu.edu.tw (C.-C. Wang).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2014.09.030
0017-9310/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

performance is attainable without pronounced increase of pressure

drops. This is because the vortex generator can provides the
swirled motion in which the additional transverse velocity components do not directly contribute to the rise of pressure drops as that
of longitudinal velocity gradient. As a consequence, the heat transfer performance is improved with only a moderate increase of the
pressure drop (Jacobi and Shah, [3]). There are various types of vortex generators used in aerodynamic application (wedge, plough,
ramp, scoop, dome, wheeler, wing type, and wave element, ESDU
[4]). For VGs applicable to the air-cooled heat exchangers, the early
investigation by Edwards and Alker [5]reported a notable increase
of local heat transfer coefcient of 76% alongside a delta-winglet
vortex generator on a at plate surface. Tiggelbeck et al. [6,7]
examined the inuence of rectangular wing and delta winglet on
the performance of n-and-tube heat exchanger. Biswas et al. [8],
and Fiebig et al. [9,10] numerically investigated the inuences of
geometrical congurations of VG such as rectangular wing, triangular winglet and the corresponding geometry parameters like
aspect ratio and attack angle. They concluded that an aspect ratio

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C.-C. Wang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 80 (2015) 281287

Nomenclature
A
Dc
Fp
h
hi
N
NTU
Pl

surface area, m2
collar diameter, m
n pitch, m
heat transfer coefcient, W m-2 K-1
inside heat transfer coefcient, W m 2 K
number of tube row
number of transfer unit, dimensionless
longitudinal tube pitch, m

of 2 and an attack angle of 30 results in the best ratio of heat

transfer/pressure drop. For an inline arrangement, 5565% heat
transfer enhancement with moderate rise of pressure drop of 20
45%.
There were many numerical studies concerning the simulation
of LVG in the n-and-tube heat exchangers [1120], some recent
studies [1620] had focused on the optimization of the implementations. Among these recent efforts, Jang et al. [16] investigated the
optimum span angle and transverse location and the effect of different inlet conditions. The results showed that the maximum area
reduction ratios reached 14.925.5% for the inline arrangement,
and 7.913.6% of the maximum area reduction ratio was achieved
for the staggered arrangement. Hu et al. [17] numerically studied
the relationship between the intensity of secondary ow caused
by vortex generator of n-and-tube heat exchangers, and proposed
a dimensionless parameter to characterize the intensity of secondary ow. Li et al. [18] proposed a radiantly arranged LVGs for performance improvement of the n-and-tube heat exchangers. Their
numerical results showed that the arrangement of LVGs is totally
different from existing publications. In addition to the implementations of LVGs on the n-and-tube heat exchangers, some other
numerical efforts stressed on the LVGs on louvered n-and-tube
heat exchangers [2123]. Note that most previously published
researches aimed at concerning the performance of LVG on nand-tube heat exchangers, and only very few studies had actually
experimentally implemented VG in the actual n-and-tube heat
exchangers.
Wang et al. [24,25] conducted a water tunnel visualization
experiment by utilization of an enlarged scale wave type VG applicable to n-and-tube heat exchanger. Their results clearly indicated that introducing VGs greatly relief the futile transverse
vortices behind the tube. Among the few, He et al. [26] implemented a triangular winglet VG in a n-and-tube heat exchanger
having inline conguration. The experimental results show little
impact of the 10 degree array and a moderate heat-transfer
improvement up to 32% for the small pair, both introducing additional pressure loss of approximately 2040%. In view of the shortage of the experimental data for the VG geometry, the present
authors propose an alternative VG conguration that is based on
dimple design, and test results are compared with plain and louver
n geometry. With the presence of dimple alongside the n surface, the ip side becomes a hemisphere. As the air ow across
the dimple surface, the ow separation may occur and it would
generate a re-circulation zone and an upwash ow. The upwash
vortices periodically ow out the dimple to give rise to horseshoe
vortices and improved the heat transfer process accordingly. As a
consequence, the overall objective of this study is therefore to
present some detailed comparisons of the airside performance of
the semi-dimple VG against some counterpart n geometries, i.e.
louver and plain n geometry. The effects of the n pitch and the
number of tube row will be also examined in this study.

Pt
DP
U
Vfr
e
Df

transverse tube pitch, m

pressure drop, Pa
overall heat transfer coefcient, W m
frontal velocity, m s-1
effectiveness, dimensionless
n thickness, m

2. Experimental setup
As tabulated in Table 1, a total of eighteen sample coils which
includes plain, louver, and semi-dimple VG. The detailed dimension and the photo of the semi-dimple VG is schematically shown
in Fig. 1(a) whereas the louver n is depicted in Fig. 1(b). Notice
that the n thickness (Df), collar diameter (Dc), transverse pitch
(Pt), and longitudinal pitch (Pl) for all the test samples are
0.11 mm, 7.5 mm, 21 mm, and 18.2 mm, respectively. The corresponding n pitch (Fp) ranges from 1.62.0 mm and the number
of tube row (N) spans from 1 to 4 as shown in Table 1. Detailed
construction of the circuitry arrangement is identical to those by
Wang et al. [27]. The experiments are conducted in an open wind
tunnel as shown in Fig. 2. The ambient air ow was forced across
the test section by means of a 5.6 kW centrifugal fan with an inverter. To avoid and minimize the effect of ow maldistribution in the
experiments, an air straightener-equalizer and a mixer were provided. The inlet and the exit temperatures across the sample coil
were measured by two T-type thermocouple meshes. The inlet
measuring mesh consists of twelve thermocouples while the outlet
mesh contains 36 thermocouples. These data signals were individually recorded and then averaged. During the isothermal test, the
variance of these thermocouples was within 0.2 C. In addition,
all the thermocouples were pre-calibrated by a quartz thermometer with 0.01 C precision.
The pressure drop of the test coil was detected by a precision
differential pressure transducer, reading to 0.1 Pa. The air ow
measuring station was a multiple nozzle code tester based on the
ASHRAE 41.2 standard [28]. The working medium in the tube side
was hot water. The inlet water temperature was controlled by a
thermostat reservoir having an adjustable capacity up to 25 kW.
Table 1
Detailed geometric parameters of the test samples.
No.

Fp (mm)

N, row

Geometry

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

1.6
1.6
1.6
2.0
2.0
2.0
1.6
1.6
1.6
2.0
2.0
2.0
1.6
1.6
1.6
2.0
2.0
2.0

1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2

Plain
VG
Louver
Plain
VG
Louver
Plain
VG
Louver
Plain
VG
Louver
Plain
VG
Louver
Plain
VG
Louver

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C.-C. Wang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 80 (2015) 281287

(a) Detailed geometry and photo of the Semi-dimple VG (Unit: mm)

(b) Detailed geometry of the louver fin geometry (Unit: mm)

Fig. 1. Schematic of the semi-dimple VG and louver n geometry.

P H.X

Air Flow

3-phase, 220V

P SAT
P NOZZLE

T
Hot Water
Thermostat
Reservoir

PID

GPIB

Hybrid
Recorder

SCR

PC
Computer

HEATER 3-phase, 220V

1 Air inlet
2 Straightener
3 Developing section
4 Pressure tap(inlet)
5 T/C inlet temperature measuring station
6 Test unit(Heat Exchanger)
7 T/C outlet temperature measuring station
8 Pressure tap(outlet)
9 Mixer
10 Settling Devices (Flow Straightener)

11 Nozzle pressure tap(inlet)

12 Nozzle pressure tap(outlet)

13 Multiple nozzles plate
14 Settling Devices (Flow Straightener)

15 Centrifugal fan
16 Air discharge
17 Water pump
18 Water flow meter
19 RTD inlet temperature of water side
20 RTD outlet temperature of water side
21 Temperature sensor
22 Inverter

Fig. 2. Schematic of the test facilities.

C.-C. Wang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 80 (2015) 281287
140

120

Plain h
VG
Louver
Plain
P
VG
Louver

140

120

100

100

80
80

P (Pa)

Both the inlet and outlet temperatures were measured by two precalibrated RTDs (Resistance temperature device, Pt-100). Their
accuracy was within 0.05 C. The water volumetric ow rate is
detected by a magnetic ow meter with 0.002 L/s resolution.
All the data signals are collected and converted by a data acquisition system (a hybrid recorder). The data acquisition system then
transmitted the converted signals through GPIB interface to the
host computer for further operation. During the experiments, the
water inlet temperature was held constant at 60.0 0.2 C, and
the tube side Reynolds number was approximately 38,000. Frontal
velocities of inlet air ranged from 1 to 4 m/s. The energy un-balance between air side and tube side was within 2%. The water side
resistance (evaluated as 1/hiAi) was less than 10% of the overall
resistance in all cases. The test n-and-tube heat exchangers are
tension wrapped having an L type n collar. Thermal contact
conductance provided by the manufacturers ranged from 11,000
to 16,000 W m2 K 1.
To obtain the heat transfer coefcient and pressure loss characteristics of the test coil from the experimental data, the e-NTU
method is applied to determine the UA product in the analysis.
Detailed reduction can be seen from previous work (e.g. Wang
et al. [27]).

h (W/m2K)

284

60
60
40

40

20

20

ufrontal (m/s)

3. Results and discussion

(a) Fp = 1.6 mm
100
120

Plain h
VG
Louver
Plain
P
VG
Louver

80

100

80

60

P (Pa)

h (W/m2K)

The test samples are of plain, louver, and VG congurations

with the number of tube row being 1, 2, and 4. The corresponding
n pitches (Fp) are 1.6 and 2.0 mm, respectively. Test results are in
terms of heat transfer coefcient and pressure drops. Fig. 3 denotes
the test results for N = 1 for plain, louver and semi-dimple VG
geometry. For N = 1 and Fp = 1.6 mm, it appears that the heat transfer coefcients and pressure drops for louver n geometry is higher
than those of semi-dimple VG and plain n geometry. Saboya and
Sparrow [29] performed naphthalene sublimating method for the
plain n geometry. They showed that the development of the
boundary layer is the most crucial point for the 1-row conguration, yet the effect of vortex may become more important as the
velocity increases. Therefore, as shown in Fig. 3 with the plain n
geometry, the effect of n pitch diminished when Vfr > 2 m s 1
(for plain n geometry). On the other hand, for Vfr < 2 m s 1, the
heat transfer coefcient for the plain n geometry with Fp = 2.0
mm is lower than that of Fp = 1.6 mm. Note that the results with
respect to the n pitch for plain n geometry is especially prominent for N = 1. The subsequent results have shown that the difference in heat transfer coefcient in association with n pitch is
comparatively small when N = 2 or N = 4. The phenomenon can
be further explained from the numerical results of the effect of
n pitch carried out by Torikoshi et al [30]. From their simulation,
it appears that the vortex generated behind the tube can be suppressed and the entire ow region remains steady and laminar
when the n pitch is small enough. A further increase of the n
pitch would result in a noticeable increase of cross-stream width
of vortex region behind the tube. As a result, lower heat transfer
performance is seen for a larger Fp with the 1-row conguration
at a low frontal velocity. For the numerical results of 2-row conguration by Torikoshi and Xi [31], the rst row cylinder is stabilized
due to the existence of the second tube row rather than in the
wake of the rst row. Therefore, the 2-row coil still reveals similar
results as those of 1-row coils. However, better mixing with the
presence of additional tube row may reduce the inuence of n
pitch for N = 2 relative to N = 1.
The foregoing discussion is applicable for the plain n geometry. Test results for the highly interrupted surface like louver or
semi-dimple VG surfaces, however, show a different heat transfer
performance in response to the effect of n pitch. Basically, both

60
40

40
20
20

0
0

ufrontal (m/s)

(b) Fp = 2.0 mm
Fig. 3. Test results for N = 1.

louver and semi-dimple VG geometry reveals that the heat transfer

coefcients for Fp = 1.6 mm is normally higher than those of
Fp = 2.0 mm throughout the test range. Yet the difference in heat
transfer coefcient between louver and semi-dimple VG is very
small when the frontal velocity is less than 1 m s 1 and this phenomenon prevails for both n pitches. However, the difference in
heat transfer coefcient amid louver and semi-dimple VG increases
considerably over 20% for Fp = 1.6 mm when the velocity is as high
as 5 m s 1. However, the difference is reduced to about 10% when

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C.-C. Wang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 80 (2015) 281287

Plain h
VG
Louver
Plain
P
VG
Louver

120

200

100
150

60

100

P (Pa)

h (W/m2K)

80

40
50
20

ufrontal (m/s)

(a) Fp = 1.6 mm
Plain h
VG
Louver
Plain
P
VG
Louver

120

200

100
150

60

100

P (Pa)

80

h (W/m2K)

Fp = 2.0 mm at a frontal velocity of 5 m s 1. The results are somewhat expected when the frontal velocity is low. This is because
the entering air ow for the highly interrupted surface may behave
as a duct ow where the main ow simply bypass the louver n
(Webb and Trauger [32]) without sufcient mixing, leading to a
similar heat transfer performance amid plain, louver, and semidimple VG surface. With a rise of frontal velocity, a better mixing
resulting from the louver/semi-dimple VG geometry prevails, and
accordingly a better heat transfer coefcient develops when compared to the plain n geometry. Notice that the semi-dimple VG
geometry shows a comparative performance against louver n
geometry for Fp = 2.0 mm when Vfr < 2 m s 1. For Fp = 1.6 mm, the
louver n outperforms that of semi-dimple VG geometry throughout the test range. The results are associated with the basic
enhanced natures of these two n geometry. The highly interrupted surface like louver n employs boundary layer restating
and mixing mechanisms for heat transfer augmentation while
semi-dimple VG mainly entails swirled motion alongside the n.
The engendered swirled motion is somewhat limited or conned
when the n spacing is reduced, leading to a lower heat transfer
performance. For a larger n pitch like Fp = 2.0 mm and Vfr < 2
m s 1, the generated longitudinally swirled motion is quite effective and shows a comparable performance against the louver n
geometry. As a result, an almost identical heat transfer performance for these two geometries emerges. However, with the rise
of frontal velocity, a much better mixing phenomenon caused by
the louver n geometry takes control and gives rise to a better heat
transfer performance for the louver n geometry as compared to
that of semi-dimple VG. The test results of pressure drop also
reect the heat transfer augmentation mechanisms for the louver
and semi-dimple VG, i.e. mixing, boundary layer restarting, and
swirled motion. From Fig. 3(a) where the swirled ow is less effective due to connement of n pitch, the pressure drops of the louver n geometry is appreciably higher than that of semi-dimple
VG. On the other hand, for Vfr < 2 m s 1 and Fp = 2.0 mm where
semi-dimple may process effective swirled ow, the difference in
pressure drops amid louver and semi-dimple VG is negligible. With
a rise of the frontal velocity, the mixing by louver n becomes
more effective, and the measured pressure drop is moderately
higher than that of the semi-dimple geometry. However, it should
be mentioned that the difference in pressure drop is comparatively
small for Fp = 2.0 mm as compared to that of Fp = 1.6 mm.
Test results for N = 2 and N = 4 for the three n patterns are
shown in Figs. 4 and 5. As shown in the gures, a further increase
of the number of tube row (N = 2 or N = 4), the airow within the
plain n-and-tube heat exchanger may become periodic developed, and results in the vortex-controlled regime. Consequently,
the effect of n pitch on heat transfer performance is much less
profound for N = 2 and it virtually vanishes for N = 4. The previous
studies [25,26] for plain n geometry also showed that a higher
velocity with a larger number of tube row may result in the occurrence of vortex along the ns, therefore the effect of n pitch on
heat transfer coefcient would be negligible. For the highly interrupted surface like louver or semi-dimple VG n geometry, the
results are analogous to those for N = 1. With a smaller n pitch
(Fp = 1.6 mm), the louver n outperforms that of the semi-dimple
VG geometry in the order of 210%, yet the difference is moderately increased with the rise of frontal velocity. However, the difference is less pronounced as that of N = 1. This is because of the
presence of staggered tube row arrangement that brings about a
better ow mixing mechanism. This can be made clear in
Fig. 5(a) for N = 4 and Fp = 1.6 mm, the difference between louver
and semi-dimple VG is further reduced due to the presence of multiple staggered tube rows. Notice that for N = 1, all the test samples
are regarded as inline arrangement. For a larger n pitch of 2.0 mm
as depicted in Fig. 4(b) (N = 2) and Fig. 5(b) (N = 4), one can see that

40
50
20

ufrontal (m/s)

(b) Fp = 2.0 mm
Fig. 4. Test results for N = 2.

the heat transfer coefcients for the semi-dimple VG and the louver n are comparable. This is because additional mixing augmentation caused by the staggered tube row is imposed upon the
swirled motion. The combined effects result in a similar (or only
marginally lower) heat transfer coefcient. From Figs. 35, one
can also examine the effect of the number of tube row on the heat
transfer coefcient. For highly interrupted surfaces at a same n
pitch, like louver n, the heat transfer coefcient is almost independent of tube row. The results are analogous to previous ndings
(Wang et al. [33,34]). For the present semi-dimple VG surface, the

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C.-C. Wang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 80 (2015) 281287

samples are made and tested in a well controlled wind tunnel.

The corresponding n pitch of the test samples are 1.6 mm and
2.0 mm respectively and the number of tube row are 1, 2 and 4,
respectively. Based on the foregoing discussions, some major conclusions of this study are summarized as follows:

400

Plain h
VG
Louver
Plain
P
VG
Louver

120

100
300

200

60

P (Pa)

h (W/m2K)

80

40
100
20

ufrontal (m/s)

(a) Fp = 1.6 mm
Plain h
VG
Louver
Plain
P
VG
Louver

120

400

100

Conict of interest

300

None declared.

200

60

P (Pa)

80

h (W/m2K)

(1) For the airside performance for N = 1 with a smaller n pitch

of 1.6 mm, the heat transfer coefcient for the louver n
geometry is higher than that of semi-dimple VG and plain
n geometry. For a larger n pitch of 2.0 mm, the semi-dimple VG is marginally higher than that of louver n geometry
when the frontal velocity is lower than 2 m s 1 due to the
increasing effect of swirled motion. However, the trend is
reversed where the louver n outperforms that of semi-dimple VG when the velocity is increased further. The heat
transfer coefcient for louver n outperforms that of semidimple VG due to appreciable contribution of mixing.
(2) For the airside performance of N = 2 or N = 4, the heat transfer coefcients for louver n geometry is about 215% higher
than those of the semi-dimple VG geometry. The difference
is increased with the rising velocity and the results prevail
for both n pitches. However, the difference is smaller at a
larger n pitch due to comparatively effectively swirled
motion.
(3) The effect of the number of tube row on the heat transfer
coefcients is negligible for louver n geometry and is also
small for the semi-dimple VG conguration. For the plain
n geometry, the effect of tube row is also small when
N > 1. The heat transfer performance for N = 1 is different
from N = 2 or N = 4 due to its inline conguration.

40
100

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express gratitude for the nancial
support from Ministry of Science and Technology and Energy
R&D foundation funding from the Bureau of Energy of the Ministry
of Economic, Taiwan. Grants from the Ministry of Science and
Technology, Taiwan under contract 103-3113-E-009-002 is also
highly appreciated.

20

References
0

ufrontal (m/s)

(b) Fp = 2.0 mm
Fig. 5. Test results for N = 4.

dependence of the number of tube row is also small. However, for

plain n geometry excluding the test results of N = 1, the effect of
tube row is also small. Basically, the results are analogous to previous ndings for plain n geometry (Wang and Chi. [35]).
4. Conclusions
In this study, a comparative study concerning the airside performance of n-and-tube heat exchangers having plain, louver, and
semi-dimple vortex generator are reported. A total of eighteen

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