Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 356e364

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Thermal Engineering

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

Research paper

Numerical study of the air inlet angle inuence on the aireside

performance of plate-n heat exchangers
Zhiying Liu a, Hui Li a, *, Lin Shi a, Yangjun Zhang b
a
Key Laboratory for Thermal Sciences and Power Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
b
State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

h i g h l i g h t s g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t

Heat transfer coefcient and pressure

drop increase as inlet angle
increasing.

The pressure drop increases much
larger than heat transfer coefcient.

The effects of inlet angles in hori-
zontal and longitudinal plane are
different.

Increase ratios are dened to
compare the effects of different n
parameters.

The prediction model agrees well
with the simulation results.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Numerical work is performed to study the effect of air inlet angle on heat transfer coefcient and
Received 11 March 2015 pressure drop of the plate-n heat exchangers. Two special air inlet angles which are in the horizontal
Accepted 13 June 2015 plane and in the longitudinal plane are simulated on 7 n channel meshes with different n parameters.
Available online 23 June 2015
The numerical results show that the different ow elds of the two special air inlet angles cause different
effects on heat transfer coefcient and pressure drop. When the air inlet angle is in the horizontal plane,
Keywords:
the air inlet angle effect is strongly related with the entrance region ow ied. When the air inlet angle is
Plate-n heat exchanger
in the longitudinal plane, the air inlet angle effect is related with the whole n channel ow eld because
Air inlet angle
Numerical
the vortex size is much larger and comparable to the n length. The effects of the two angles have
Prediction model different variation laws, which are greatly inuenced by n parameters. Finally, a prediction model is
established to calculate the heat transfer coefcient and pressure drop of an arbitrary inlet angle. The
comparison of prediction results and simulation results for 5 air inlet angles shows good agreement. The
maximum prediction error is within 10%.
2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction
There is a widespread application that the entrance air ow
direction is non-orthogonal to the heat exchanger surface. In
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: hui-li@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (H. Li).
automotive radiators, the air inlet direction is very complex due to
the fan rotation and the geometric restrictions [1]. The air-
conditioning evaporators and condensers are usually closed to
the fan so that the air ow direction is also non-orthogonal.
Furthermore, an air-cooled condenser described by Kroger [2] is
arranged obliquely to save land area. X.P.DU et al. [3] have studied
the cross-ow nned oval-tube heat exchangers and shown that
the entrance air ow direction has an important effect on the heat

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2015.06.032
1359-4311/ 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
 Z. Liu et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 356e364 357

transfer and pressure drop characteristics. Previous work was made

to experimentally study the effect of air ow direction on straight
and off-set strip ns. However, the pressure drop measurement
may be disturbed by the ow deector which is used to control the
entrance air ow direction and the ow distribution in the n
channel is hard to measure in the experiment.
The CFD has been used for various types of studies on heat ex-
changers [4] [5]. Beale and Steven [6] simulated the laminar ow
and the heat transfer in an offset-n heat exchanger surface
assuming the fully developed ow and the constant wall temper-
ature. The numerical friction coefcients agreed well with the
experimental data. Muzychka [8] analyzed the ow friction and
heat transfer in low Reynolds number ow heat exchangers for
three typical congurations. The predictions for the offset strip n
agreed well with experimental data within 20%. Guo et al. [7]
studied the inuence of geometrical factors on thermal-hydraulic
characteristics for high-pressure-direction type steel offset strip Fig. 1. A diagram of the entrance air ow non-orthogonal to the heat exchanger
ns using the CFD and Taguchi method. Furthermore, many re- surface.

searches has shown that the three-dimensional simulation had

good agreement with the experimental results [11e17]. The good
minimum free ow area as mentioned previously, the ux is used as
agreement proves that CFD is an effective tool for studying the ow
the air frontal velocity instead of U to retain consistency. The
and heat transfer of heat exchangers.
characteristic velocity is calculated as,
In the current work, the heat transfer and pressure drop char-
acteristics and ow distribution inside the n channel of different um ux =s (7)
air inlet direction are studied with CFD. Based on the numerical
results, a correction model is established to consider the effect of Before studying a general case, two special cases are discussed
the air inlet angle for existing correlations [9]. as follows.

2. Simulation details (1) The air inlet angle is in the horizontal plane, uz 0, namely g
equals to zero. The air inlet angle a is named the horizontal
2.1. Parameter denition angle.

Usually the air entrance ow is orthogonal to the heat exchanger As Fig. 2(a) shown, the air ow direction is changed by the plain
surface when investigating the heat transfer and pressure drop n which causing a windward side and a leeward side at the two
characteristics for the plate n heat exchangers [10]. Supposing the sides of the n. The far upstream u1 can be decomposed into u1x and
air frontal velocity is u0, the Reynolds number is dened as, u1y,

Re um Dh =n (1) u21 u21x u21y (8)

um u0 =s (2) 
tan a u1y u1x (9)
.
s Afree Afrontal (3)

where s is the ratio of the core minimum free-ow area Afree to the
frontal area Afrontal, um is the maximum average velocity in the core,
Dh is the hydraulic diameter.
However, the ow and heat transfer may greatly change when
the air ow is non-orthogonal to the heat exchanger surface. Fig. 1
shows a general situation of the entrance air ow direction non-
orthogonal to the heat exchanger surface. The x axis represents
the n length direction, the y axis represents the n spacing di-
rection, and the z axis represents the n height direction. The air
ow velocity U can be expressed by three perpendicular velocity
components ux, uy, and uz as follows,

ux U cos g cos a (4)

uy U cos g sin a (5)

uz U sin g (6)

where a is the angle between ux and the projection of U in xy

plane, g is the angle between U and its projection in xy plane.
Since the characteristic velocity is dened by air ow rate and the Fig. 2. Schematic diagrams of the special air inlet angles.
358 Z. Liu et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 356e364

The increase ratios of the heat transfer coefcient and the static
pressure drop are calculated to study the inuence of the horizontal
angle as follows,

ha  h0
Kh;a (10)
h0

DPs a  DPs 0
Kp;a (11)
DPs 0

where (h)0 is the air-side heat transfer coefcient at air inlet angle
of 0 , and (DPs)0 is the static pressure drop at air inlet angle of 0

(2) The air inlet angle is in the longitudinal plane, uy 0, namely

Fig. 3. Mesh and boundary conditions.
a equals to zero. As Fig. 2(a) shown, the air inlet angle b is
named the longitudinal angle.
 
vv vv vv vp vtxy vtyy vtzy
Like case (1), the air inlet angle b is dened as, r u v w  (17)
vx vy vz vy vx vy vz
tan b u1z =u1x (12)  
vw vw vw vp vtxz vtyz vtzz
The heat transfer coefcient and the static pressure drop in- r u v w  (18)
vx vy vz vz vx vy vz
crease ratios are calculated as follows,
Energy equation
hb  h0
Kh;b (13) !
h0 vT vT vT l v2 T v2 T v2 T
u v w (19)
vx vy vz rcp vx2 vy2 vz2
DPs b  DPs 0
Kp;b (14) Heat conduction equation in the solid domain
DPs 0
v2 T v2 T v2 T
0 (20)
vx2 vy2 vz2

2.2. Governing equations

Several approximations are made in the numerical simulations 2.3. Mesh and boundary conditions
as follows.
Three-dimensional numerical work is performed for 7 meshes
(1) Flow is assumed to be incompressible and steady. with different n parameters to study the air inlet angle effect. The
(2) Air property is constant and the tube inner wall temperature detailed information of the cases is listed in Table 1. The air frontal
is xed. velocity is 8e16 m/s and the air inlet angle is 0 e80 . As the ow is
(3) Thermal radiation, nature convection, and gravity force are periodic in the n height and n spacing directions, a 2  2 n
neglected. channel is used as the calculation domain. Hexahedral mesh is used
to ensure the simulation accuracy. Xie et al. [17] compared ve
The governing equations in the uid domain are expressed as turbulence models with experimental data. These models are the
follows, Continuity equation RNG k  model, the standard k  model, the Reynolds Stress
model, the SST k  u model, and the v2f model. The results show
vu vv vw that all the turbulence models provide similar results except for the
0 (15)
vx vy vz SST k  u model. The two k  turbulence models are in approx-
imate agreement with the experimental data. Thus the standard
Momentum equations
k  turbulence model is used for the simulations. The model
  constants are set to the default values of FLUENT software package.
vu vu vu vp vtxx vtyx vtzx
r u v w  (16) Fig. 3 shows the hexahedral mesh used for the simulation, the
vx vy vz vx vx vy vz
n channel part is between the inlet section and exit section. The
boundary layer mesh is rened to decrease the near-wall

Table 1
Geometry parameters of the n channels.

Mesh No. Fin spacing [mm] Fin thickness [mm] Fin height [mm] Tube height [mm] Fin length [mm]

1# 2.0 0.2 9.5 4.0 60

2# 2.5 0.2 9.5 4.0 60
3# 3.0 0.2 9.5 4.0 60
4# 3.5 0.2 9.5 4.0 60
5# 2.5 0.2 8.0 4.0 60
6# 2.5 0.2 12 4.0 60
7# 2.5 0.2 15 4.0 60
 Z. Liu et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 356e364
Table 2
Detailed information of each simulation case group.
Group no. Mesh no.
1# 2#
2# 1#e4#, 6#
3# 2#
4# 2#, 4#e7#
5# 2#
temperature gradients. The number of grids is two million to four
million depending on the channel size, the mesh quality is over 0.8.
Mesh independence was studied on the n channel 2# with a
coarse mesh with one million grids, a normal mesh with two
million grids, and a ne mesh with four million grids. The differ-
ence between the normal mesh and the ne mesh is within 3%
while the difference between the coarse mesh and the ne mesh is
more than 10%.
Velocity inlet, pressure outlet, and two pairs of periodic
boundaries are used in the simulations. The air inlet temperature is
25  C. The tube inner wall temperature is xed at 80  C. The inlet
settings can be classied into ve groups as shown in Table 2 for
different purposes. The rst four groups are used to study the in-
uence of n parameters, air frontal velocity, and air inlet angle on
Kh and Kp. The last group is for model verication.
3. Results and discussion
The results of case 1# and 3# show that the ow elds of
different air frontal velocities are broadly similar. The increase ra-
tios are used to discuss the variation of heat transfer coefcient and
pressure drop when air inlet angle is nonzero. Fig. 4 shows that the
heat transfer and pressure drop increase ratios have a little
Fig. 4. The increase ratios of heat transfer coefcient and pressure drop at different air velocities (fp 2.5 mm, fh 9.5 mm, a 0 ~ 80 , b 0 ~ 70 ).
359
ux [m/s] a [ ] b [ ]
6, 8, 12, 16 0, 20, 40, 50, 60, 70, 75, 80 0
8 0, 20, 40, 50, 60, 70, 75, 80 0
6, 8, 12, 16 0 0, 20, 40, 50, 60, 70
8 0 0, 20, 40, 50, 60, 70
8 0, 40, 60, 70 0, 40, 50, 60, 70
difference at different air velocities. Thus the ow eld, heat
transfer, and pressure drop of different air inlet angles and n pa-
rameters are discussed when air frontal velocity is xed at 8 m/s.
3.1. Flow eld
Fig. 5 shows the ow elds of the middle horizontal plane at a of
0 , 40 , 60 , and 70 while the air frontal velocity is 8 m/s and b is
xed at 0 . When a is nonzero, the air ow is askew to the plain n
with a vortex near the leeward side. As the ow is choked by the
vortex, the windward-side air velocity is larger than the average
velocity at the entrance. After owing through the vortex, the
windward side air velocity is still larger than the leeward side. The
air velocity nally becomes uniform under the inuence of the n
walls after owing for some distance. As the horizontal angle a
increases, the vortex size and its inuence region become much
larger. However, when a further increases, the ow becomes uni-
form faster because the vortex heavily blocks the air ow.
Fig. 6 shows the ow elds of the middle vertical plane at b of 0 ,
40 , 60 , and 70 while the air frontal velocity is 8 m/s and a is xed
at 0 . When the longitudinal angle b is nonzero, the air ow is
askew to the tube with a vortex near the leeward side. As the n
and tube height are much larger than the n spacing and n
360 Z. Liu et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 356e364
Fig. 5. Flow eld of the middle horizontal plane at the air frontal velocity of 8 m/s, a of
0 , 40 , 60 , 70 , and b xed at 0 .
Fig. 6. Flow eld of the middle longitudinal plane at the air frontal velocity of 8 m/s, b
of 0 , 40 , 60 , 70 , and a xed at 0 .
thickness, the vortex length is comparable to the n length. Thus
the ow may be always non-uniform. The trailing vortex size also
increases under the inuence of the non-uniform ow. When b is
more than 70 , the ow becomes unstable and the trailing vortex
starts shedding.
Fig. 7. Local heat transfer coefcient in the n windward and leeward sides at the air frontal velocity of 8 m/s, a of 0 e70 , and b xed at 0 .
3.2. Heat transfer
The n local heat transfer coefcient is compared at different air
inlet angles as the n area is the main contribution to the heat
transfer. Fig. 7 shows the local heat transfer coefcient of the n
windward and leeward sides at a of 0 e70 while the air frontal
velocity is 8 m/s and b is xed at 0 . The air inlet angle effect on heat
transfer is mainly in the entrance region. In the windward side, the
near-wall air velocity increases with air inlet angle increasing, thus
the local heat transfer coefcient increases in the entrance region.
In the leeward side, though the near wall air velocity is much small
due to the vortex, the local heat transfer coefcient is also larger
than fully developed region because of the vortex. However, the
near-wall temperature difference is very small, thus the heat
transfer rate of the n leeward side is not enhanced in the vortex
region.
Fig. 8 shows the local heat transfer coefcient of the n at b of
0 e70 while the air frontal velocity is 8 m/s and a is xed at 0 . As
the windward and leeward sides are in the tube, the vortex is
parallel to the n. The local heat transfer coefcient decreases in
the vortex region and increases above the vortex, because the near-
wall air velocity is very small in the vortex region and much larger
above the vortex.
Fig. 9 compares the increase ratio of average heat transfer co-
efcient at different air frontal velocities and n parameters. The
increase ratio Kh,a is larger than Kh,b due to the different local heat
transfer distribution of n and tube walls. When a is variable and b
is xed, the increase ratio Ka increases with n spacing increasing.
The n height has little effect on Ka. When b is variable and a is
xed, the increase ratio Kb increases with n spacing increasing and
n height decreasing.
3.3. Pressure drop
Fig. 10 shows the pressure drop components in one ow passage
of a plate-n heat exchanger [10]. Here the subscripts 1, 2, 3, and 4
represent locations far upstream, passage entrance, passage exit,
and far downstream, respectively. As the air ow enters the
 Z. Liu et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 356e364 361

Fig. 8. Local heat transfer coefcient in the n surface at the air frontal velocity of 8 m/s, b of 0 e70 , and a xed at 0 .

passage, it contracts due to the free-ow area decrease. DP12 is the
pressure drop at the core entrance due to ow separation and the
sudden contraction. DP23 is the pressure drop in the core. DP34 is
the pressure rise at the core exit due to the free-ow area increase.
DPcore DP12 DP23  DP34
Usually, the core frictional pressure drop DP23 is a dominating
term, the total core pressure drop can be approximated as,
4L ru2m
DPcore zf (22)
Dh 2
where f is the friction factor, L is the ow length, Dh is the hydraulic
diameter, r is the air density, um is the velocity calculated by the
minimum ow area in the core.
(21) When air ow direction is non-orthogonal, total pressure drop
increases because the vortex chokes the air ow in the entrance
region and change the velocity distribution in the n channel.
Fig. 11 shows the static and total pressure components along the
ow length in the middle horizontal plane when air inlet angle is in
the horizontal plane. As the n spacing is very small, the vortex size
is much smaller than the n length, the inuence of air inlet angle
can be divided into three regions. In the vortex region, pressure
decreases rapidly and then increases gradually. In a partial region
after the vortex, the total pressure near the windward side is larger
than leeward side due to the air velocity non-uniformity. As the air
ow becomes uniform, the total pressure near the leeward and
windward sides is almost the same.
For the special case (1), the total pressure at the far upstream
and downstream can be expressed as,

1 1  
Pt1 a Ps1 a ru21 Ps1 a r u21x u21y (23)
2 2

1 1  
Pt4 a Ps4 a ru24 Ps4 a r u24x 0 (24)
2 2

Fig. 9. Air-side heat transfer coefcient vs. air inlet angle of different n parameters
(ux 8 m/s). Fig. 10. Pressure drop components in the passages of a plate-n heat exchanger.
362 Z. Liu et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 356e364

where the subscripts t, s, and a represent total pressure, static

pressure, and air inlet angle. When owing through the n channel,
u4x equals to u1x because of mass continuity, while u4y is zero. The
total pressure drop is,

1 2
DPt a Pt4 a  Pt1 a Ps1 a  Ps4 a ru
2 1y
1
DPs a ru1x tan a2 (25)
2
Since the maximum velocity um is usually used as the charac-
teristic velocity in the heat exchanger design, the total pressure
drop can be expressed by a function of um as,

1 2 2
DPt a DPs a rs um tan2 a (26)
Fig. 11. Pressure components of three lines in the middle horizontal plane of the n 2
channel when air ow is non-orthogonal.
Likewise, for the special case (2), the total pressure drop can be
expressed as,

1
DPt b DPs b rs2 u2m tan2 b (27)
2
Thus the total pressure drop is larger than the static pressure
drop when air direction is non-orthogonal to the heat exchanger
surface. Fig. 12 compares the total and static pressure drop increase
ratio varying with a and b at different n parameters. When a is
variable from 0 to 80 and b is xed, the Ksp,a increases rst and
then decreases, and the change is within 20%. The Ksp,a increases
with n spacing increasing. When b is variable from 0 to 70 and a
is xed, the Ksp,b signicantly increase with b and n height
increasing. However, the n spacing has little inuence on Ksp,b. The
total pressure drop increase ratio is much larger because of the
dynamic pressure loss when air ow direction is non-orthogonal.
The Ktp,a increases with n spacing increasing while n height
has little inuence on Ktp,a. The Ktp,b increases with n height
increasing and decreases with n spacing increasing.

Fig. 12. The pressure drop increase ratios vs. air inlet angle of different n parameters. Fig. 13. Flow elds on the cross sections in the n channel (fp 2.5 mm, fh 9.5 mm,
(ux 8 m/s). ux 8 m/s).
 Z. Liu et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 356e364 363

Table 3
Comparison of prediction and simulation results.

(a, b) Simulation results Prediction results Error

h [W/m2k] P [Pa] TP [Pa] h [W/m2k] P [Pa] TP [Pa] h P TP

(0,0) 79.80 87.91 87.90 e e e e e e

(40,40) 91.11 104.40 157.80 92.03 105.85 159.02 1.01% 1.39% 0.77%
(40,60) 98.10 130.60 271.10 96.93 136.75 276.62 1.29% 5.89% 3.50%
(60,40) 101.03 113.20 253.60 104.87 111.23 251.10 4.22% 1.88% 1.58%
(70,50) 113.56 129.90 470.00 120.78 121.68 460.35 7.92% 7.87% 6.12%
(70,70) 129.71 170.00 742.50 128.55 175.38 745.45 1.27% 5.15% 1.87%

3.4. Prediction model for general situations
For a general situation, both a and b are nonzero, the non-
orthogonal air velocity U can be decomposed into three perpen-
dicular velocity components ux, uy, and uz in a three-dimensional
Cartesian coordinate system. The inuence of air inlet angle on
heat transfer is related to the near-wall air velocity of the n and
tube wall. As show in Fig. 13(a) and (b), the inlet angle a mainly
causes velocity non-uniformity along the y direction in the
entrance region, while inlet angle b mainly causes velocity non-
uniformity along the x direction in the whole n channel. The
ow eld in Fig. 13(c) can be regarded as a duplicate effect of the
ow elds in Fig. 13(a) and (b). The total pressure drop increase is
mainly due to the dynamic pressure loss of the velocity compo-
nents uy and uz. Thus it is applicable to assume that the effect of the
air inlet angle (both a and b are nonzero) can be regarded as a
combination of the effects in the two special cases (a s 0, b 0, and
a 0, b s 0). Thus the heat transfer coefcient and pressure drop
can be calculated as follows,
 
hab 1 Kh;a Kh;b $h0 (28)
 
DPs ab 1 Ksp;a Ksp;b $DPs 0 (29)
air inlet angle increasing, while the static pressure drop increases
rst and then decreases. The increase ratios Kh,a and Ktp,a increase
with n spacing increasing and are little affected by n height.
However, the total pressure drop increase is much larger than heat
transfer. The static pressure drop increase ratios Ksp,a is very small
and can be neglected compared with the total pressure drop.
When the air inlet angle is in the longitudinal plane, the vortex
length is much larger because the n height is much larger than n
spacing. The heat transfer coefcient increase ratio Kh,b increases
with n spacing increasing and n height decreasing. The static
pressure drop increase ratio Kp,b increases with n height
increasing and is little affected by n spacing.
A prediction model is established to predict the heat transfer
coefcient and pressure drop when both the horizontal angle a and
the longitudinal angle b are nonzero. The comparison of prediction
results and simulation results for 7 pairs of a and b shows good
agreement. The maximum error is less than 10%.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the State Key Program of the Na-
tional Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51236004)
and Science Fund for Creative Research Groups (No. 51321002).

1   References
DPt ab DPs ab rs2 u2m tan2 a tan2 b (30)
2
where the subscripts a and b represent the horizontal angle and the
longitudinal angle in the special cases.
The 5th simulation group is used to verify the prediction model.
Table 3 compares the simulation results and prediction results.
Both the heat transfer coefcient and pressure drop are in good
agreement. The maximum error is less than 10% when a and b are
less than 70 . It means that when the air frontal velocity ux is in the
range of 6 m/s to 16 m/s and air inlet angles a and b are less than
70 , the assumption is practicable and the prediction error is
acceptable in the engineering application.
4. Conclusion
Three-dimensional simulations are performed to investigate the
effect of air inlet angle on heat transfer coefcient and pressure
drop. Two special air inlet angles which are in the horizontal plane
and in the longitudinal plane are studied rst. When air frontal
velocity is 6e16 m/s, the velocity has a little inuence on the heat
transfer and pressure increase ratios. Thus the inuence of air inlet
angle and n parameters is investigated at a xed air frontal ve-
locity. The heat transfer coefcient and pressure drop increase with
air inlet angle increasing, while the pressure drop increase is much
larger.
When the air inlet angle is in the horizontal plane, the air inlet
angle effect is mainly in the entrance region and strongly related
with the ow ied. The heat transfer coefcient increases with the
[1] M. Khaled, F. Mangi, H.E. Hage, et al., Fan air ow analysis and heat transfer
enhancement of vehicle underhood cooling systemeTowards a new control
approach for fuel consumption reduction, Appl. Energy 91 (1) (2012)
439e450.
[2] D.G. Kro ger, Air-cooled Heat Exchangers and Cooling Towers, vol. I, PennWell
Corporation, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2004.
[3] X.P. Du, M. Zeng, Z.Y. Dong, et al., Experimental study of the effect of air inlet
angle on the air-side performance for cross-ow nned oval-tube heat ex-
changers, Exp. Therm. Fluid Sci. 52 (2014) 146e155.
[4] L. Sheik Ismail, R. Velraj, C. Ranganayakulu, Studies on pumping power in
terms of pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics of compact plate-n
heat exchangersdA review, Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 14 (1) (2010)
478e485.
[5] M.M. Aslam Bhutta, N. Hayat, M.H. Bashir, et al., CFD applications in various
heat exchangers design: a review, Appl. Therm. Eng. 32 (2012) 1e12.
[6] S. Beale, Laminar fully developed ow and heat transfer in an offset rectan-
gular plate-n surface, PHOENICS J. Comput. Fluid Dyn. 3 (1) (1990) 1e19.
[7] L. Guo, F. Qin, J. Chen, et al., Inuence of geometrical factors and pressing
mould wear on thermal-hydraulic characteristics for steel offset strip ns at
low Reynolds number, Int. J. Therm. Sci. 46 (12) (2007) 1285e1296.
[8] Y.S. Muzychka, Analytical and Experimental Study of Fluid Friction and Heat
Transfer in Low Reynolds Number Flow Heat Exchangers[D], 1999.
[9] J.M. Corbera n, E. Cuadros, K. Gonz alez, Pressure drop characterisation of
compact heat exchanger channels[C], in: 5th European Thermal-Sciences
Conference, The Netherlands, 2008.
[10] R.K. Shah, D.P. Sekulic, Fundamentals of Heat Exchanger Design[M], John
Wiley & Sons, 2003.
[11] H. Peng, X. Ling, Numerical modeling and experimental verication of ow
and heat transfer over serrated ns at low Reynolds number, Exp. Therm.
Fluid Sci. 32 (5) (2008) 1039e1048.
[12] Y. Zhu, Y. Li, Three-dimensional numerical simulation on the laminar ow and
heat transfer in four basic ns of plate-n heat exchangers, J. Heat Transf. 130
(11) (2008) 111801.
[13] H. Bhowmik, K.S. Lee, Analysis of heat transfer and pressure drop character-
istics in an offset strip n heat exchanger, Int. Commun. Heat Mass Transf. 36
(3) (2009) 259e263.
364 Z. Liu et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 356e364

[14] H. Peng, X. Ling, J. Li, Numerical simulation and experimental verication on f: fanning friction factor ()
thermal performance of a novel n-plate thermosyphon, Appl. Therm. Eng. 40 h: heat transfer coefcient (W/m2K)
(2012) 181e188. j: Colburn j-factor ()
[15] S. Ben Saad, P. Clement, J.F. Fourmigue , et al., Single phase pressure drop and L: ow length (m)
two-phase distribution in an offset strip n compact heat exchanger, Appl. p: pressure (Pa)
Therm. Eng. 49 (2012) 99e105. DPs: static pressure drop (Pa)
[16] Y.L. He, W.Q. Tao, F.Q. Song, et al., Three-dimensional numerical study of heat DPt: total pressure drop (Pa)
transfer characteristics of plain plate n-and-tube heat exchangers from view Re: Reynolds number
point of eld synergy principle, Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 26 (3) (2005) 459e473. T: temperature (K)
[17] G. Xie, J. Liu, P.M. Ligrani, et al., Numerical analysis of ow structure and heat U: air inow velocity (m/s)
transfer characteristics in square channels with different internal-protruded u0: air frontal velocity (m/s)
dimple geometrics, Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 67 (2013) 81e97. um: maximum average velocity (m/s)
u, v, w: velocity components (m/s)
a: horizontal angle ( )
Nomenclature b: longitudinal angle ( )
l: thermal conductivity (W/mK)
cp: thermal capacity (J/kgK) n: kinematic viscosity (m2/s)
Dh: hydraulic diameter (m) r: air density (kg/m3)