International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 17431751

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

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

Numerical study on a slit n-and-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal

vortex generators
Jiong Li a, Shuangfeng Wang a,, Jinfang Chen a, Yong-Gang Lei b
a
b

Key Lab. of Enhance Heat Transfer and Energy Conversion, Ministry of Education, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, Guangdong, PR China
State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xian Jiaotong University, Xian, Shaanxi 710049, PR China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 28 July 2010
Received in revised form 12 January 2011
Accepted 13 January 2011
Available online 12 February 2011
Keywords:
Slit n
Longitudinal vortex
Field synergy principle
Heat transfer
Computational uid dynamics (CFD)

a b s t r a c t
A 3-D numerical simulation is performed on laminar heat transfer and ow characteristics of a slit nand-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generators. Heat transfer enhancement of the novel slit
n mechanism is investigated by examining the effect of the strips and the longitudinal vortices. The
structure of the slit n is optimized and analyzed with eld synergy principle. The result coincides with
the guideline front coarse and rear dense. The heat transfer and uid ow characteristics of the slit nand-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generators are compared with that of the heat exchanger with X-shape arrangement slit n and heat exchanger with rectangular winglet longitudinal vortex
generators. It is found that the Colburn j-factor and friction factor f of the novel heat exchanger with
the novel slit n is in between them under the same Reynolds number, and the factor j/(f1/3) of the novel
heat exchanger increased by 15.8% and 4.2%, respectively.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Fin-and-tube heat exchangers have been used extensively in
refrigeration and air conditioning. Enhanced ns including wavy
n and interrupted n are widely used to improve the performance
of n-and-tube heat exchangers. As an interrupted n, the slit n
has been studied by many investigators [16]. It enhances heat
transfer by renewing the boundary layer and reducing the thickness of the boundary layer [1]. The rst study in literature on the
slit n and round tube heat exchanger was performed by Nakayama
and Xu [2]. They reported that the heat exchanger of 2 row,
staggered arrangements with the slit n, which used 9.5 mm tube
diameter, 0.2 mm n thickness and 2 mm slit width, showed a
higher heat transfer coefcient by about 78% than that of the plane
n. Hiroaki et al. [3] experimentally studied the effect of strip location of X-arrangement on the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics. A representative case was proposed by Kang and Kim
[4]. It had the X-shaped pattern of slits and a 7 mm round tube.
They reported accomplishing a 1.6 times heat transfer performance
and two-third compactness over the existing results. Numerical
simulations have also been widely used to investigate the ow
and heat transfer details of the slit n. Yun and Lee [5] analyzed
the effect of various design parameters on the heat transfer and
pressure drop characteristics of the heat exchanger with a slit

Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 20 22236929.

E-mail address: sfwang@scut.edu.cn (S. Wang).
0017-9310/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2011.01.017

n. The airside performance of n-and-tube heat exchangers

having slit geometry was experimentally investigated by Wang
et al. [6]. A total of 12 samples were tested and compared. Effects
of n pitch and the number of tube row were examined. A general
correlation was proposed to describe the airside performance of
the slit n conguration. Tao et al. [7] and Qu et al. [8] investigated
the slit n with three-dimensional numerical computation to analyze the type and location of the strips. They conducted some analysis on the heat transfer enhancement mechanism with eld
synergy principle and found out that strip located in the downstream part had better heat transfer performance than that located
in the upstream part.
For enhanced ns, vortex generator is a promising ow manipulator, which introduces vortices into the ow passage causing
heat transfer enhancement. It has three mechanisms for passive
heat transfer enhancement: (1) developing boundary layers; (2)
swirling; (3) ow destabilization. This enhancement method has
the important advantage of low cost and ease of implementation,
with a usually modest pressure drop penalty [913]. There are
many commonly employed vortex generators [14], delta-wing vortex generators and rectangular winglet vortex generators.
In this paper, a slit n-and-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generators is proposed. Compared with the traditional
slit n, the structure of the strip is improved and similar to that
of rectangular winglet longitudinal vortex generators. In addition,
the number of strips decreased to develop the longitudinal vortices
more fully. Thus, the novel slit n has the heat transfer and ow
characteristics of both the traditional slit n and the longitudinal

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J. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 17431751

Nomenclature
A
Ac
Cp
D
Dh
f
Fp
gm
h
H
J
k
L
M
N
Nu
P
DP
P
Pr
Q
Re

total heat transfer surface area (m2)

minimum ow area (m2)
specic heat at constant pressure (J kg1 K1)
tube outer side diameter (mm)
hydraulic diameter, Dh 4AAc L (mm)
fanning friction factor
n pitch (mm)
air ux at the minimum cross-section of the ow area
(kg m2 s1)
heat transfer coefcient (W m2 K1)
height of the strip (mm)
Colburn factor
thermal conductivity (W m1 K1)
length parameters about the strip (mm)
module production
the number of control volume or point
average Nusselt number
pressure (Pa)
pressure drop (Pa)
bulk average pressure (Pa)
Prandtl number
heat transfer capacity (W)
Reynolds number based on hydraulic diameter

vortex generators. The new type of slit n enhances heat transfer

from two aspects: (1) the interrupted n with the strips, (2) longitudinal vortices generated by the strips.
Computational uid dynamics (CFD) method is performed on
heat transfer and uid ow characteristics of the novel heat exchanger. The effect of the strips and the vortices generating of
the new type of slit n is analyzed in detail. The strips location is
investigated and optimized from the point view of the eld synergy principle. The heat transfer and ow characteristics of the slit
n-and-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generators
are compared with that of heat exchanger with the X-shape
arrangement slit n and heat exchanger with rectangular winglet
longitudinal vortex generators.

2. Numerical simulation
2.1. Physical model
The schematic diagram of a slit n-and-tube heat exchanger
with longitudinal vortex generators is shown in Fig. 1. The tube
is usually made of copper and the ns are made of aluminum.
The slit n is alike that some pieces of strips are punched from
the base sheet. Fig. 2 gives the top view of the computation domain
of the slit n and tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex
generators. Due to the symmetric and periodic arrangement, the
shadow section of the heat exchanger shown in Fig. 2 is selected
as the computing domain. The neighboring two ns middle surfaces are selected as the upper and lower boundary of the computational element, respectively. The side surface of the n and the
tubes middle surface are selected as the front and back boundary
of the computational element, respectively. Because of the n
thickness, the air velocity prole is not uniform at the entrance
of the channel formed by the ns middle surfaces. The computational domain is extended upstream 0.5 times of the original heat
transfer zone to ensure the velocity distribution uniform at the inlet of domain. The computational domain is also extended downstream 1 time of the original heat transfer zone so that fully

S
T

distance parameters between the tubes (mm)

temperature (K)

T
Uc
!
U
u, v, w
x, y, z

bulk average temperature (K)

velocity at the minimum cross sectional area (m s1)
velocity vector (m s1)
x, y, z velocity components (m s1)
Cartesian coordinates

Greek symbols
a
angles of attack ()
d
thickness (mm)
l
dynamic viscosity of air (Pa s)
q
density (kg m3)
h
the local intersection angle ()
Subscripts
in
inlet parameters
w
wall condition
out
outlet parameters
Abbreviation
LVG
longitudinal vortex generator

developed boundary condition can be used at the outlet [15,16].

The elementary computational domain is presented in Fig. 3, in
which x, y, z are stream wise, span wise and normal coordinates,
respectively.
2.2. Grid generation
The computational meshes are generated using Gambit, which
is packaged with FLUENT software. It is difcult to use a single
structured quadrilateral mesh in the whole computational domain.
The computational domain is divided into three parts in the ow
direction: the upstream-extended region, the n coil region and
the downstream-extended region. Structured meshes are used in
the upstream-extended and downstream-extended region, while
unstructured meshes are employed in the n coil region shown
in Fig. 4. A very large difference in cell volume between adjacent
cells is avoided and a very high quality of mesh has been ensured
throughout the computational domain.
2.3. Governing equations and boundary conditions
The CFD software FLUENT is used for the numerical simulation.
The air ow between the neighboring ns is laminar owing to the
low velocity and the small n pitch. In the computation, the
Reynolds number based on the inlet average velocity (15 m/s)
and ow passage hydraulic diameter is below 2500. The ow is
steady and incompressible [15,16]. The governing equations
include continuity, momentum and energy equations for uid
region, conduction equation for solid region. The equations are
expressed as follows [15,16]:

Continuity equation :

Momentum equation :

@qui
0:
@xi
@
@
qui uk
@xi
@xi

1



@uk
@p

;
@xk
@xi

J. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 17431751

1745

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of core region of a slit n-and-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generators.

Fig. 2. Computational domain and geometric dimensions.

Fig. 3. Denition of the computational domain and coordinate system.

Energy equation :



@
@
k @T
:
qui T
@xi
@xi C p @xi

Governing equations are discreted by means of the control volume

method, and the convection term is discreted by adopting the
power-law scheme [17]. The coupling between pressure and

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J. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 17431751

Fig. 4. Mesh topology: (a) detail of the grid on the strip and (b) irregular meshing of the n coil region.

velocity is conducted by the SIMPLE algorithm calculating the

regional. Fin thickness and heat conduction in the ns are taken into
account. The temperature distribution for the ns can be determined by solving the conjugate heat transfer problem in the computational domain. Similar treatments can be found in references
[15,16]. The convergence criterion is that the normalized residuals
are less than 106 for the ow equations and 108 for the energy
equation.
The boundary conditions are described as follows:
At the inlet, velocity-inlet boundary condition: u = uin, T = Tin,
m = x = 0.
At the upper and lower surface of the wind tunnel region (xy
planes), periodic boundary conditions:

@u @ t

0;
@z @z

x 0;

u v x 0;

@T
0 extended region;
@z

@T
0 fin region:
@z

At the front and back surface of the wind tunnel region(x-z planes),
symmetry boundary condition:

@u @ x

0;
@y
@y

v 0;

@T
0:
@y

2.4. Parameter denition

In compact heat exchanger, the performance parameters depend on the geometry and ow conditions. The ow condition
can be characterized by Reynolds number base on the hydraulic
diameter. Colburn j-factor and friction factor f are used to describe
the heat transfer and pressure drop of heat exchangers. To improve
the model to be easily understood, Reynolds number, Colburn factor j, Fanning friction factor f are dened as follows:

Re

qU c Dh
l

2
h
 Pr3
g m cp

2 DP D h
:
qU 2c L

The mean temperature, pressure and Nusselt number of a cross-section are dened as:

RR
uTdA
T RRA
udA
A

RR
pdA
p RRA
dA
A

RR
Nudxdy
Nu RR
:
dxdy

_ p T in  T out DP pin  pout

Q mc
T w  T in  T w  T out

:
ln T w  T in =T w  T out

At the outlet boundary, outow boundary condition:

The heat transfer coefcient is dened as:

@u @ v @ x @T

0:

@x @x
@x @X

h Q =ADT:

Fin surface region, interface: u v x 0; @T

0.
@y
Tube region: u = v = x = 0, T = Tw.
Geometric size and computational condition are listed in
Table 1.

3. Results and discussion

Dimension

Value

Fin collar outside diameter D (mm)

Transverse pitch S1 (mm)
Longitudinal pitch S2 (mm)
Fin pitch Fp (mm)
Fin thickness d (mm)
Angles of attack a ()
Height of strip H (mm)
Width of strip L (mm)
Position of strip (L1, L2, L3) (mm)
Wall temperature (K)
Inlet temperature of air (K)
Frontal velocity (ms1)

7.6
11.6
18.8
1.4
0.105
45
1
1.8
3, 8, 4.6
333.15
308
15

The total heat transfer, pressure loss and log-mean temperature difference are dened as:

DT

Table 1
Geometric dimension for the studied heat exchanger.

3.1. Grid independence test and model validation

Before any computational result can be deemed enough to illuminate the physical phenomenon, the computational results must
be justied through the grid independence test. In order to validate
the solution independence of the grid number, four different grid
numbers are studied. The grid numbers are 60,600, 122,200,
244,400 and 362,800, respectively. The average Nusselt number
of the fourth grid system differs from that of the third by less than
0.5%. Hence, computation is based on the third grid system 244,400
at this condition. Similar examinations are also conducted for the
other cases in this work.
In order to validate the reliability of the numerical method
being used, the heat transfer and ow characteristics of the slit
n heat exchanger are compared with the available experimental
results published in literature. The geometric parameters for the
heat exchanger are presented in [6]. The Reynolds number is below
2500. The predicted results are compared with the experimental

J. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 17431751

Experimental
Numerical

0.1

1747

result from Wang et al. [6]. The Colburn j-factor and friction factor f
are shown in Fig. 5. As can be seen from the gures, the average
discrepancy between the predicted factor j and the experimental
values is less than 4.6% and the average discrepancy between the
predicted factor f and the experimental values is less than 8.1%.
The agreement between the predicted and experimental results
indicates that the numerical model is reliable to predict heat transfer and ow characteristics in these compact heat exchangers.
Thus, this method is employed to simulate air-side performance
of the slit n-and-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex
generators in the present work.
3.2. Heat transfer enhancement principle of the novel slit n

0.01

100

1000

Re
Fig. 5. Comparison of factor j and factor f between numerical and experimental
results.

The new type of slit n has been described above. It has the heat
transfer and ow characteristics of both the traditional slit n and
the rectangular winglet longitudinal vortex generators. It can be
seen from Fig. 6a, the longitudinal vortices structure carried by slit
n is presented on the surface of S1/S2/S3/S4. As ow separation
occurs on the leading edge of the slit n, swirling motion is generated by ow separation along the side edge of the slit n due to the

Fig. 6a. Vector-plots and streamlines generated by LVGs in four yz sections (S1/S2/S3/S4) for the novel slit n at Re = 1051.3.

Fig. 6b. Temperature distribution in four yz sections (S1/S2/S3/S4) for the novel slit n at Re = 1051.3.

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J. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 17431751

Fig. 7a. Velocity vectors of a xz section (S5) for the novel slit n at Re = 1051.3.

Fig. 7b. Temperature distribution in a xz section (S5) for the novel slit n at Re = 1051.3.

pressure difference between the upstream and downstream sides.

The effect of these vortices distorts the temperature eld in a channel and serves ultimately to bring about augmentation of heat
transfer between the uid and its neighboring surface. The temperature distributions in four yz planes (S1/S2/S3/S4) at Re = 1051.3
are presented in Fig. 6b. From the gure we can see that the temperature proles are distorted by the stream wise vortices. It is
indicated that the longitudinal vortices have signicant inuence
on the temperature distribution of the cross-sections and the
change of the thermal boundary layer thickness near the wall.
These vortices take the cooler uid from the mid region to the
hot channel wall, the thermal boundary layer becomes thinner,
and the temperature gradient near the wall is increased, the heat
transfer is enhanced.
So far, heat transfer enhancement mechanism of the strips for
the slit n has been studied little by numerical simulation. In the
present work, it is analyzed as following. The velocity vector of surface S5 is shown in Fig. 7a. The air ow is disturbed to accelerate at
the edge of the strips, which is the basic heat transfer enhancement
method. Fig. 7b shows the corresponding temperature eld of the
surface S5. On the one hand, the thermal boundary layer is broken
and becomes thinner as strips disturb the air ow. As a result, the
heat transfer is enhanced. On the other hand, strips in the n can
enhance convective heat transfer as it interrupts the ow boundary
layer to reduce its thickness by repeatedly recreation of new thermal boundary layers, and increases the disturbance in the ow
eld. A relatively thinner boundary layer serves positively to enhance heat transfer.

result in decrease of heat transfer. In front of the rst tube, the

span-average Nusselt number abruptly increases due to the formation of horseshoe vortices, which brings about better mixing and
enhances heat transfer in this region. For the slit n, the enhanced
heat transfer effect of strips leads the span-average Nusselt number larger than the plain n in this region. A little peak occurs at
the downstream of the rst strip as the effect of the longitudinal
vortices. The trends of the span-average Nusselt number for the
two congurations beyond the location of the second strip become
quite different. For the plain n geometry, the Nusselt number is
low in the wake region behind the tube where uid recirculation
with low velocity causes poor heat transfer. Nevertheless, for the
enhanced conguration, the values of the span-average Nusselt
number are higher than that of the baseline conguration. The vortex generator creates an acceleration ow and longitudinal vortex,
which lead the stream ow into the wake region and enhance the
mixing of the hot and cold uid. This is the reason why the local
Nusselt number behind the delta winglet is greatly improved. At
the downstream of the second strip, heat transfer is enhanced by

3.3. Analysis of local heat transfer characteristics of the novel slit n

Fig. 8 presents the distribution of span-average Nusselt number
along the length of the n-and-tube heat exchanger with plain n
and slit n with longitudinal vortex generators. For both of the
base line (plain n) and enhanced conguration (slit n), the
Nusselt number is very large at the inlet region and decreases
gradually along the ow direction until the rst strip. It is because
the temperature gradient is the maximum at the leading edge of
the n bottom for the rst time, and then both the velocity and
thermal boundary layers develop along the ow direction and

Fig. 8. Comparison of span-average Nusselt number on the xy plane between the

plain n and the slit n at Re = 1051.3.

J. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 17431751

1749

Fig. 9a. Four types of slit n with the strips at different locations.

longitudinal vortices. For the second row, the trends of the spanaverage Nusselt number for the two congurations is the same
as the rst row, but the span-average Nusselt number is lower than
that of the rst row as the temperature gradient increases.
3.4. Effect of the locations of the strips
In the present study, some changes are made for the location of
the strips: the strips are mainly located in the upstream half with
few strips being in the downstream for the n C, and vice versa for
n D. Fig. 9a shows the n conguration details of the four strip
arrangement patterns. Fin A is the whole plain plate n. Fin B possess uniformly distributed strips arranged over the entire n. The
simulation conditions are the same as above. The numerical results
are analyzed from the point of eld synergy principle.
For the analysis in terms of the eld synergy principle, the folP !
lowing formula is introduced: M
j U jjgradTj=N, where: N is the
total number of the control volume covering the n region. When
the intersection angle between velocity and temperature gradient
becomes zero, the production of velocity vector and temperature
!
gradient, j U jjgradTj, is the largest. The value of M will be called
module production for simplicity. The local intersection angle is
determined by the following equation:

!
P
!
U  rT
hV
Pi i:
h

m
!
Vi
j U jjrTj

Fin A
Fin B
Fin C
Fin D

85

7
6

80
5
75

Intersection angle ()

-1

90

M10 (Ks )

h arccos

From the local intersection angle, the average intersection angle of

the computation domain of the n area can be obtained by using
numerical integration [7].
The numerical results for the average intersection angle are
plotted in Fig. 9b. From the gure, it can be seen that the intersection angle of n D is the smallest, while that of n A is the largest,
with a difference about 5 deg at the same Reynolds number. It is
especially interesting to note that the averaged intersection angle
of n D is always less then that of n C. It indicates n D has a
better heat transfer performance than n C. The trend and characteristics of module production is the same as the averaged intersection angle.
To have better understanding of this point of view, we examined some computational results of the velocity vector and isotherm distributions in the middle plane between the two
adjacent n surfaces for the n A and n D situation. These results
are presented in Fig. 9c. It can be seen that in the upstream part of
the n, the temperature contours are almost perpendicular to the
velocity vector, this implies that the uid temperature gradient
are almost in the same direction as the velocity, the synergy between velocity and temperature gradient is very good. Hence, in
this part of the n, there is no need to create the interruption within the uid; however, in the downstream part of the n, the temperature contours are almost parallel to the velocity vector in the

70

3
2

65

1
60
400

800

1200

1600

2000

Re
Fig. 9b. Inuence of the strips location on averaged intersection angle and module
production.

Fig. 9c. Distributions of isothermals and streamlines for baseline case (Fin A) and
modied case (Fin D) at Re = 1320.8: (1) isothermal for baseline case; (2) streamline
for baseline case; (3) isothermal for modied case; (4) streamline for modied case.

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J. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 17431751

major part of the region. It is at this place that enhancement techniques are needed in order to improve the synergy between velocity and the temperature gradient. Fin D are made with less strips in
the upstream and more strips in the downstream. It can be seen
that in the downstream part of the n D, the temperature contours
are not parallel to the velocity vector as that of Fin A, the temperature contours are almost perpendicular to the velocity vector at
some places, this implies the synergy between velocity and temperature gradient becomes better. This is the further understanding why the heat transfer performance of n D is better than that
of n C. The results is the same as the guideline front coarse and
rear dense [8].
3.5. Heat transfer and uid ow comprehensive performance of the
novel slit n
The novel slit n has the characteristics of both the traditional
slit n and the rectangular winglet longitudinal vortex generator,
so its necessary to compare the heat transfer and ow characteristics of the slit n-and-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generators to that of the traditional slit n heat exchanger
and the heat exchanger with rectangular winglet longitudinal
vortex generators. The heat transfer and pressure drop performance of three heat exchangers are shown in Fig. 10a. In the gure,
Fin A is slit n with longitudinal vortex generators, Fin B is the
X-Arrangement slit n, and Fin C is the rectangular winglet
100

Fin A
Fin B
Fin C

90

80

60

30

P (Pa)

h (W/m k)

4. Conclusions

60

40
0
20
-30
0

v (m/s)
Fig. 10a. Comparison of the heat transfer coefcient and pressure drop versus
frontal air velocity of three heat exchangers with different ns.

0.035

Fin A
Fin B
Fin C

j/f

(1/3)

0.028

0.021

0.014

500

1000

1500

longitudinal vortex generators. The tube diameter of them is the

same. Geometry dimensions of Fin B refer to the specic literature
[6]. The height and the length of the rectangular winglet (Fin C) are
equal to that of the strips (Fin A). A qualitative comparison for
enhanced heat transfer surface is an important issue in evaluating
the performance improvement by taking some enhancement technique. j/f(1/3) factor is adopted simply because its simplicity and
clearness in concept. It is used to investigate comprehensive capability of heat exchanger through examining the heat transfer performance and ow resistance. Fig. 10b shows Fin B has the best
heat transfer performance as frequent interruption of the ow
created by the high-density strips, but its pressure drop is the
largest. For Fin C, the structure is relatively simple, the blocking
effect on the air ow is the least, and pressure drop is the smallest,
then the heat transfer effect is the worst. The heat transfer performance and pressure drop of Fin A is between Fin B and Fin C, as the
number of strips of Fin A is less than that of Fin B, but the structure
is more complex than Fin C. It is shown in Fig. 10b slit n with
longitudinal vortex generators heat exchanger has the best heat
transfer and uid ow comprehensive performance. As Reynolds
number ranges from 250 to 2500, j/f(1/3) factor of slit n with
longitudinal vortex generator heat exchanger is 15.8% and 4.2%
larger than that of heat exchanger with X-Arrangement slit n
and heat exchanger with rectangular winglet longitudinal vortex
generators, respectively. It can be seen that the slit n with longitudinal vortex generators is a type of n with good performance. In
addition, its processing technology is mature and simple, so the slit
n-and-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generators
has a good promise.

2000

Re
Fig. 10b. Comparison of j/f(1/3) of three heat exchangers with different ns.

In this paper, a 3-D numerical simulation is employed to investigate the heat transfer and uid ow characteristics of the slit n
heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generators. Heat transfer
enhancement mechanism of it is studied in depth, and the structure is analyzed and optimized from the point view of the eld synergy principle. The air-side heat transfer and ow characteristics of
the slit n-and-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generators is compared with that of the heat exchanger with the traditional slit n and the heat exchanger with rectangular winglet
longitudinal vortex generators. The major conclusions are drawn
as follows:
1. For the novel slit n, longitudinal vortices can be generated by
the strips, which can improve the heat transfer performance.
The new type of the slit n has combined the heat transfer
and ow characteristics of both the traditional slit n and longitudinal vortices generators. It can signicantly enhance heat
transfer performance of n-and-tube heat exchangers with
the modest pressure drop penalty.
2. Detailed analysis on the location of the strips is carried out from
the point view of the eld synergy principle. It indicates that the
strips located in the downstream part more and less in the
upstream part has better heat transfer performance than the
other type of arrangement.
3. The heat transfer performance and pressure drop of slit n with
longitudinal vortex generators heat exchanger is in between
heat exchanger with the traditional slit n and heat exchanger
with rectangular winglet longitudinal vortex generators. As
Reynolds number ranges from 250 to 2500, j/f(1/3) factor of slit
n-and-tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generator
is 15.8% and 4.2% larger than that of heat exchanger with
X-Arrangement slit n and heat exchanger with rectangular
winglet longitudinal vortex generators, respectively.

J. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 17431751

Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the nancial support of funding from
Guangdong Provincial International Cooperation Funding (Grant
No. 2009B050400002), funding from NSFC (Grant No. 50876033),
and NSFC-United Fund of Guangdong Province (Grant No.
U0834002). The authors also wish to thank Dr. Zhang and Dr. Shen
for providing valuable advice.
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JSME Thermal Eng. Conf., pp. 495502.
[3] K. Hiroaki, I. Shinichi, A. Osamu, K. Osao, High efciency heat exchanger,
National Tech. Rep. 35 (1989) 7179.
[4] H.C. Kang, M.H. Kim, Effect of strip location on the air-side pressure drop and
heat transfer in strip n-and-tube heat exchanger, Int. J. Refrig. 22 (1999) 302
312.
[5] J.Y. Yun, K.S. Lee, Inuence of design parameters on the heat transfer and ow
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