Applied Energy 92 (2012) 725–732

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Investigation on pressure drop and heat transfer performances of plate-fin iron

air preheater unit with experimental and Genetic Algorithm methods
M. Zeng a, L.X. Du a, D. Liao a, W.X. Chu a, Q.W. Wang a,⇑, Y. Luo b, Y. Sun b
a
Key Laboratory of Thermo-Fluid Science and Engineering, MOE Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, China
b
Sinopec Engineering Incorporation, Beijing 100101, China

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

Article history: Air preheater is one of key elements in today’s energy-saving technology. Its performance deeply depends
Received 16 April 2011 on the underlying configuration for heat transfer. In this paper, the pressure drop and heat transfer char-
Received in revised form 4 July 2011 acteristics of a high-efficiency plate-fin structure used in an air preheater are experimentally investigated
Accepted 7 August 2011
under a large variety of conditions. In particular, the critical Reynolds number for the conversion from
Available online 17 September 2011
laminar to turbulent flow in the system is obtained, and the heat transfer coefficients in the gas and
air sides of the heat exchanger are successfully separated from the overall heat transfer coefficient using
Keywords:
Genetic Algorithm method. The main conclusions drawn from this work will be helpful for future devel-
Plate-fin iron air preheater
Heat transfer and friction factor
opment and design of a high-efficiency heat preheater involving plate-fin structures.
Genetic Algorithm Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Separated correlation

1. Introduction
With the increasing scarcity of energy resources, energy-saving
and energy-efficiency-increasing have been paid more and more
attention. As an element of heat transfer systems, air preheater plays
an important role in energy-saving and energy-efficiency-increas-
ing [1]. Air preheater heats air by recycling waste gas in cracking
furnace, boiler, heating furnace, stove, thermoplastic materials pro-
duction and drying systems. Specifically, air preheater can improve
the theoretical combustion temperature of fuel, ensure the neces-
sary furnace temperature and save fuel, improve combustion effi-
ciency and reduce steel loss and gas emissions.
In particular, this article focus on the combustion air preheaters
used in large boilers found in thermal power stations producing
electric power from fossil fuels, biomasses or waste, etc. [2]. The
air preheater recovers the heat from the boiler flue gas which
increases the thermal efficiency of the boiler by reducing the useful
heat lost in the flue gas. As a consequence, the flue gas is also sent
to the flue gas stack (or chimney) at a lower temperature, allowing
simplified design of the ducting and the flue gas stack. The air pre-
heater also allows control over the temperature of gas leaving the
stack (to meet emissions regulations, for example). Fig. 1 shows the
role of air preheater in a boiler system. Air enters into preheater
though blower, absorbs quantity of exhaust heat, and then enters
into boiler to combust. On the other hand, high temperature flue
gas emitted by boiler goes through working portion, and enters
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wangqw@mail.xjtu.edu.cn (Q.W. Wang).
into air preheater. Finally high temperature flue gas discharges into
the atmosphere through chimney after exchanging quantity of
heat with low temperature air.
There are two types of air preheaters for use in steam genera-
tors in thermal power stations: one is a tubular type built into
the boiler flue gas ducting, and the other is a regenerative air pre-
heater. These may be arranged so the gas flows horizontally or ver-
tically across the axis of rotation.
Nowadays, heat pipe and rotary air preheaters are the most
extensive air preheaters. Many efforts have been made to reveal
the flow and heat transfer performances of air preheater [3–12].
Rittidech [3] and Nuntaphan [4] analyzed the role of heat pipe
heat exchanger in waste recycling through experimental study.
Meena et al.’s results revealed that the CLOHP/CV air-preheater
can reduce the relative humidity and achieve energy thrift [5]. For
thermosyphon air preheater at high temperature applications, it is
found that with selected mixture content of triethylene glycol
(TEG)-water in each row of the thermosyphon the performance of
the system could be increased approximately 30–80% compared
with pure TEG for parallel flow and 60–115% for counter flow config-
urations [6].
Bostjan et al. [7] developed a newly three-dimensional numer-
ical model for heat transfer as the basis for a theoretical analysis of
a rotary air preheater. The model enables studies of the flue-gas
flow through the preheater and the adjoining channels as well as
the regenerative heat transfer and the resulting temperature distri-
bution in the matrix of the preheater. Special attention was
focused on the influences of leakages on the flue-gas parameters
in the preheater. Exergy analysis methods were employed to

0306-2619/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.08.008
726 M. Zeng et al. / Applied Energy 92 (2012) 725–732
Nomenclature
cp specific heat, J/(kg K)
Nu Nusselt number
p static pressure, Pa
Lc length along main flow direction, mm
S total heat transfer area, m2
V volume, m3
qm mass flow rate, kg/s
umax maximum cross section velocity, m/s
de hydraulic diameter, mm
Re Reynolds number
k overall heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2 K)
h convection heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2 K)
LMTD log mean temperature difference, °C
S gap between inner fin and inner tube surface, mm
f fanning friction factor
t temperature, °C
measure the effect of irreversibility in rotary air preheater (RAPH)
on the efficiency of thermal power plant [8]. The findings indicated
that the analysis of the leakage effects on energy efficiency by
means of exergy is particularly preferable in the case of RAPH.
Moreover, the results would provide a theoretical supplement for
the adjustment of air sealing systems. Wang et al. [9] studied a
tri-sectional air preheater with a developed mathematical model
using semi-analytical method. The effects of dimensionless param-
eters on the temperature distribution of tri-sectional air preheater
were investigated. The simulation results indicated that the semi-
analytical approach was more precise and had better convergence
than that of the standard numerical iterative method. The numer-
ical analysis and experimental results showed a significant depen-
dence on the reduced length and reduced period of the rotary air
preheater. A rotary regenerator was simulated by solving a devel-
oped mathematical model and optimized with the experimental
design method [10]. In this way, the effect of dimensionless
parameters on the effectiveness of rotary heat exchangers was
investigated. There are only three main parameters affecting the
regenerator efficiency. These are rotational speed, hot air velocity
and cold air velocity. Shah [11] developed a theoretical model
which can predict qualitatively and quantitatively experimental
data for a full scale rotary heat exchanger operating as an air pre-
heater for a pulverized coal fired boiler. Wang et al. [12] estab-
lished a simplified mathematical model of a segmental plate, and
investigated a thermal and stress analysis of sheet welded sheet
metal.
For the heat pipe air preheater, the vacuum drop aroused by the
heat transfer medium loss and deflation will lead to failure of heat
Chimney
Firebox
Air preheater
Fig. 1. Boiler system with air preheater.
Greek
q density, kg/m3
Dt temperature difference between inlet and outlet, °C
U heat transfer rate, kW
w correction factor of temperature difference
ga overall surface efficiency of air-side
gg overall surface efficiency of gas-side
ba total surface area to original base surface area of air-side
bg total surface area to original base surface area of gas-side
gfa fin efficiency of air-side
gfg fin efficiency of gas-side
Subscripts
air air side
gas gas side
in inlet
out outlet
pipe. For the rotary air preheater, large power consumption, leak-
age, low temperature corrosion fouling and coking problems are
still serious, so basically is not used in the steel industry. Although
the heat pipe and rotary air preheaters have many advantages, the
aforementioned disadvantages will limit their applications. Other
types of air preheaters have been used in some case. The plate-
fin air preheater (as shown in Fig. 2) has received much attention
in recent years for some merits: convenient for large-scale, modu-
lar and combination; high heat transfer coefficient; low pressure
drop; corrosion resistant; withstand high and low temperature
performance; anti-fouling and cleaning on-line and high reliability.
On the other hand, a common practice for engineering applica-
tions or further researches is to compress the experimental data
into one or more compact correlations related to heat transfer or
friction factor, e.g. Nu = cRemPrn. The most conventional way of cor-
relating data in the field of heat transfer is using the Regression
Analysis (RA) technique. However, the recent studies showed that
the predicted data through correlations obtained by RA is not so
good to describe the experimental data than that obtained by Com-
putational Intelligence techniques such as Genetic Algorithms (GA)
[13–15].
In recent years, the application of GA in thermal engineering has
been paid much attention for solving real-world problems [16–20].
Some researchers optimized the geometry of heat exchanger by GA
[16–18], some used GA for thermal design [18,19], and some ac-
quired both the form of the correlation equations and the constants
in correlations [20–23]. Other applications in radiate heat transfer
were also presented [24]. These reports suggested that GAs have a
strong ability of evolutional search and combinational
Working portion
 M. Zeng et al. / Applied Energy 92 (2012) 725–732 727

2. Experimental methods

2.1. Experimental set-up

The schematic diagram of experimental set-up is shown in

Fig. 3. The fluids move in cross flow, in other words, air flows from
left to right through low temperature side channels, and gas flows
from top to bottom through high temperature side channels. The
main parts of the cycle are blower, compressor, firebox, plate-fin
iron air preheater. Compressor provides high pressure air. The nor-
mal temperature air rises to 40 °C through the compressor, and
then flows into the air-side channel and goes out after absorbing
the heat of gas-side channels. On the other hand, blower provides
low pressure gas. The normal temperature air is input into firebox,
Fig. 2. Unit of plate-fin iron air preheater. burning with the fuel (aviation kerosene) to acquire the required
high temperature gas. The gas flows into gas-side channel and goes
out after exchanging heat with air. Finally the lower temperature
gas emits into the atmosphere through the exhaust pipe.
optimization, and GAs can successfully optimize and predict
Two total pressure tubes are used to track the total pressure
thermal problems.
drop in both the inlet and outlet ports at air-side and gas-side
Returning to the present work, it is generally recognized that
channels. With these probes, the total pressure drop in each chan-
when determining the Nusselt number, the wall temperature of
nel can be measured with U style water column. The total pressure
air preheater plate should be measured before data reduction.
value of inlet at air-side and gas-side channels can be acquired
Alternatively, due to the difficulty in installing thermocouples on
with Rosemount 1151 pressure sensor. The K-thermocouples are
the wall surfaces under special conditions, researchers usually
used to measure the inlet/outlet temperatures of the air and gas
adopt the Wilson-plot technique to separate the heat transfer coef-
in the plate-fin iron air preheater. In order to eliminate measure-
ficient indirectly. However, usually this separation method should
ment error, cold junction compensation must be setup. In present
satisfy two basic requirements, that is, the thermal resistant of one
experiment, cold junction compensation is set up by keeping the
side should be kept constant and the exponent of Reynolds number
cold end temperature constant using FLUKE temperature calibra-
in correlation is fixed. Actually in practical situations, keeping the
tion furnace. In order to prevent heat loss during the test, all the
constant heat transfer of one side will involve in many difficulties
outside surfaces of the air preheater are covered by over 100 mm
of experiments, and in most cases the exponential relation of heat
thick thermal insulation materials.
transfer vs. flow rate (that is, Nu vs. Re) is not specific surely before
During the experiment for the air preheater unit, the inlet tem-
conducting experiments. The GA has no such restricted condition;
perature of air is about 40 °C; the mass flow rate of air is 0.65 kg/s
it can be used to separate the coefficients of heat transfer correla-
and 0.75 kg/s; the inlet temperature of gas changes four times from
tions in the hot and cold sides of the heat exchanger by separating
200–300 °C, the mass flow rate of gas changes five times from 0.5
the overall heat transfer coefficient without experimentally know-
to 0.9 kg/s.
ing wall temperatures.
According to the above mentioned, it can be found that the re-
2.2. Geometry of plate-fin iron air preheater
searches about plate-fin air preheater are scare. The details of pres-
sure drop and heat transfer have not been clarified yet. However,
Plate-fin iron air preheater consists of many casting fins. The
there may be plenty of applications of plate-fin air preheater in
structure charts of air-side channel and gas-side channel of
the near future in the field of engineering operations. Thus, as a
plate-fin iron air preheater unit are shown in Figs. 4 and 5
first trial we intend to study the heat transfer and flow perfor-
separately.
mances of plate-fin iron air preheater unit by experiment, and then
The equivalent diameter can be calculated by using the follow-
a Genetic Algorithm is employed to obtain the correlations by sep-
ing equation.
arating heat transfer coefficients in the total heat transfer equation
[23]. de ¼ 4 V=S ð1Þ

air blower firebox

fuel

compressor air preheater

air

air

thermocouple
fliter
pressure gauge
flowmeter
valve gas

Fig. 3. Structure diagram of experimental set-up.

728 M. Zeng et al. / Applied Energy 92 (2012) 725–732

data, and to find out the corresponding power-law correlations of

Nu vs. Re for each case. The mean value of the inlet and outlet tem-
peratures is used to evaluate the physical properties of the air or
the gas.
Base on the temperature difference Dti, and the mass flow rate
qm,i, the heat transfer rates of air-side and gas-side are calculated
by using the following equation.
Ui ¼ qm;i  cip  Dti ði ¼ a; gÞ ð3Þ

where the a and g represent the air-side and the gas-side sepa-
rately; qm is mass flow rate; cp is specific heat at constant pressure;
Dti is the temperature difference between inlet and outlet.
In all tests, the heat balance between the two sides, |Ua  Ug|/
Um, is within 5%. Um is the average heat transfer rate.
Fig. 4. Structure chart of air-side channels. Um ¼ ðUa þ Ug Þ=2 ð4Þ
The overall heat transfer coefficient, k is calculated from the fol-
lowing equation.
Um
k¼ ð5Þ
A  LMTD
where A is surface area of clapboard; LMTD is the log mean temper-
ature difference and defined as follows.
Dt max  Dt min
LMTD ¼ w  ð6Þ
lnðDt max =Dt min Þ
where w is the correction factor of temperature difference [26].
To avoid the two constraints of Wilson-plot technique, Genetic
Algorithm (GA) is used to separate heat transfer coefficient. GA is
maintained by a population of parent individuals that represent
Fig. 5. Structure chart of gas-side channel.
the latent solutions of a real-world problem. Each individual is as-
signed a fitness based on how well each individual fits in a given
environment, evaluated by survival of the fittest. Fit individuals
Table 1 go through the process of survival selection, crossover, and muta-
Geometry of plate-fin iron air preheater.
tion, creating a next generation, called child individuals. A new
Item Unit Value population is therefore formed by selection of good individuals
Equivalent diameter of air-side mm 28.19 from parent and child individuals. After some generations, the
Heat transfer area of air-side m2 11.68 algorithm is converged to the best individual, which possibly rep-
Heat transfer area of clapboard m2 3.21 resents the best solution of the given problem. More details about
Mini-cross sectional area of air-side m2 0.0722
the description of the Genetic Algorithm can be found in many
Equivalent diameter of gas-side mm 22.43
Heat transfer area of gas-side m2 14.06 classic books [26,27].
Thickness of clapboard mm 6 The conventional GA determines the global maximum value in
Mini-cross sectional area of gas-side m2 0.0747 search spaces; however, the objective of the present correlation
and prediction is to make the deviation minimum between the
predicted and the experimental results. Thus, when searching the
where V is the volume of flow, S is the total heat transfer area. Table coefficients, a fitness function is developed as described in the fol-
1 shows the main geometry of air preheater in air-side and gas-side. lowing procedure.
In the present experiments, the area of each side is not identical
as shown in Table 1. For convenience, the overall heat transfer
3. Data reduction
coefficient is written based on the area of the clapboard.
Accordingly,
3.1. Pressure drop
1 1 ds 1
The pressure drop is characterized by adopting the Fanning fric- ¼ þ þ ð7Þ
k ha ga ba ks hg gg bg
tion coefficient [25].
where ga and gg are the overall surface efficiency of air-side and
Dpde
f ¼ ð2Þ gas-side, respectively; ba, bg are the total (fin plus expose base) sur-
2qu2max Lc face area to the original base surface area of air-side and gas-side
where Dp is the pressure differences between the inlet and outlet of (ba = 3.8, bg = 4.57); ds is the thickness of clapboard (ds = 6 mm); ks
the two sides, (Pa). Lc is the length along the main flow direction is the thermal conductivity of clapboard (ks ¼ 39:2 W=ðm KÞ).
(m). The overall surface efficiency can be calculated as follows.
gi ¼ ðA1i þ gfi A2i Þ=ðA1i þ A2i Þ ði ¼ a; gÞ ð8Þ
3.2. Heat transfer
where A1i is the surface area of expose base, A2i is the surface area of
The main purpose of the data reduction is to determine the Nus- fin and gfi is the fin efficiency. The fin cross-section is non-uniform
selt number, Nu, of the heat exchangers from the experimental (as shown in Figs. 4 and 5), which results in the difficulty of
 M. Zeng et al. / Applied Energy 92 (2012) 725–732 729

determining fin efficiency. The structures of fins are simplified as Table 2

fins of uniform cross section under the condition of equal height Summary of uncertainties analysis.

and heat transfer area. So, the final fin efficiency of air-side and Parameter Uncertainties (%) Parameter Uncertainties (%)
gas-side can be calculated as follows. qm 2.01 U 3.47
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi q 2 h 4
tanhðmHc Þ tanhð0:023 24:6ha Þ umax 4.02 Re 5.3
gfa ¼ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð9aÞ T 2 Nu 5.29
mHc 0:023 24:6ha
Dp 0.1 f 8.81
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi de 2.82 k 4.48
tanhðmHc Þ tanhð0:0296 19:43hg Þ
gfg ¼ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð9bÞ
mHc 0:0296 19:43hg R ¼ f ðx1 ; x2 ; . . . ; xn Þ ð15Þ
The flow in the plate-fin iron air preheater can regard as inter- The absolute uncertainty of R can be determined
nal flow, and the Nusselt number can be assumed as follows. "
n 
X 2 #1=2
m @R
Nu ¼ cRe ð10Þ DR ¼ DX i ð16Þ
i¼1
@X i
Supposing the average heat transfer coefficients vary slightly in
a certain point, the fin efficiencies are constant in Eqs. (9a) and The relative uncertainty of R can also be determined
(9b), so the overall surface efficiencies are constant as well. Sup- "  #1=2
Xn 
posing c0 = cg, substituting it into Eq. (10), we obtain DR DX i 2
¼ ð17Þ
m
R i¼1
Xi
0
Nug ¼ c Re ð11Þ
where DXi are the absolute uncertainties of Xi. The precision of flow
Based on the definition of Nusselt number, the heat transfer
rate meters is ±2.01%, and that of temperature is 2.0%. Data of a typ-
coefficients can be calculated as follows.
ical experimental case are used to calculate the uncertainty of the
0 k1 parameters, and the summary is shown in Table 2.
ha ¼ ha ga ¼ c01 Rem1 ð12aÞ
de1 a
4. Results and discussion
0 k2
hg ¼ hg gg ¼ c02 Rem2 ð12bÞ
de2 g 4.1. Pressure drop
Incorporating Eq. (12) into Eq. (7) yields.
Figs. 6 and 7 show the pressure drops of the heat exchanger as
1 1 ds 1 the increase of the inlet temperature and the mass flow rate of the
¼ þ þ ð13aÞ
k h0a ba ks h0g bg gas-side. As the inlet temperature of the gas-side increase, the
pressure drops in the gas-side increase slightly, and the pressure
1 1 1 drops in the air-side are almost the same. The physical properties
¼ þ 0:0001531 þ ð13bÞ change of the gas flows is the main reason for the increase of the
k 3:8c01 dk1 Rem
a
1
4:57c2 de2 Rem
0 k2
g
2
e1 pressure drops as the inlet temperature increases.
As the gas flow rate of the gas-side increases, the Dp/p increase
In Eq. (13b), there are four coefficients, c01 , c02 , m1, m2, to be ob-
quickly in the gas side while the Dp/p in the air-side nearly the
tained. Fortunately, these four coefficients can be found by GA-
same. The average velocity of the hot gas flows has a proportional
based separation. After collecting n (n = 40) sets of experimental
relation with the mass flow rate. So the pressure drops of the gas-
points, the fitness function now is defined as
side increase quickly as the mass flow rate increases. For the mean
10 temperature of the cold air flows changes very small, the pressure
fitness ¼ P   ð14Þ
n  i drops of the air-side change slightly.
1
n i 100kk
ki  As shown in Fig. 8, the friction factor data for the gas-side is pre-
sented from Re = 5000–11,000. It can be found that there is a
where ki can be directly reduced from the experimental data. It is
change in slope in the curve of f vs. Re, which means the flow will
noted from above fitness function that its value of being less than
transition from laminar to turbulent near the region (Re = 6000–
unity results in the averaged relative deviation of being less than
7000). And in the experiment, the gas flue is heated by the oil in
10%.
the combustion chamber. Because the combustion of the oil has
In the present study, tournament selection, uniform crossover,
a fluctuation, the temperature of the gas flue has a fluctuation
and one-point mutation were selected. Niching and elitism are
which result in the fluctuation of the density of gas flue. In the
adopted [28–30]. The size of the population and maximum evolu-
same mass flow rate, the pressure loss increases quickly as
tion generation were set to 40 and 1000, respectively. The probabil-
the temperature increases. The fluctuation of the temperature is
ity of crossover and mutation were set to 0.5 and 0.005, respectively.
the main reason leading to the scattered points in Fig. 8.
The selection of genetic parameters is a trial-and-error process, and
with the variation of these parameters, results are not exactly iden-
4.2. Heat transfer
tical but are very close to each other. On the other hand, the selection
of genetic parameters and operators is based on the previous recom-
Under the same air mass flow rate and fuel gas inlet temperature,
mendations [23,28].
the heat transfer rate increases as the fuel gas mass flow rate
increases as shown in Fig. 9a. The reason is that the mass flow rate
3.3. Uncertainty analysis leads to the increase of velocity so that the heat transfer coefficient
is enhanced. The heat transfer rate against the fuel gas-side inlet
The uncertainty analysis is studied carefully with the method temperature under hot experimental conditions is plotted in
presented in Kline and McClintock [31]. Given a variable R, which Fig. 9b. The results in this figure indicate that the heat transfer rate
is a function of n independent variables x1, x2 ,. . . , xn. increases with the increase of fuel gas inlet temperature. It is obvious
730 M. Zeng et al. / Applied Energy 92 (2012) 725–732

1.2
44

1.0 43

42
0.8
Δp/p / %

Δpgas /pgas

Φ / kW
41
0.6 Δpair /pair
40
Δptot /p

0.4 39

38
0.2
37
200 220 240 260 280 300
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
tg,in / °C -1
q m,g / kg⋅ s
Fig. 6. Dp/p vs. tg,in.
(a)
60
Δpgas /pgas
1.2 Δpair /pair
55
Δptot /p
1.0
50
Δp /p / %

0.8
Φ / kW

45
0.6
40
0.4

35
0.2
0.50 0.55 0.60 0.65 0.70 0.75 0.80 30
-1
qm,g / kg⋅s 200 220 240 260 280 300
tg,in °
/ C
Fig. 7. Dp/p vs. qm,g.
(b)
Fig. 9. U vs. qm,g and tg,in.
0.10
using Eq. (5) based on the experimental data; the other one is
based on GA technique. The detailed process of GA method and
the comparison between these two methods are shown as follows.
0.09
The evolution process for the fitness is shown in Fig. 10. At the
beginning of evolution process (about less than 70 generations),
the differences between every individual are relatively large, in
f

0.08 turn leads to the individuals with low fitness being eliminated
and individuals with higher fitness being saved. After certain gen-
erations (about larger than 200 generations), the variation of fit-
0.07 ness for minimum deviation is small, finally approaching to a
constant value. The constant value is 11.14 and the average relative
error is 0.9%.
0.06 Fig. 11 shows the differences between overall heat transfer
4500 6000 7500 9000 10500 coefficients of experiment and forecasting. In this figure, data in
y-coordinate refer to the results obtained by GA separation while
Re
the data in x-coordinate refer to the experimentally measured data.
Fig. 8. f vs. Re for gas side. The middle straight line means that the GA results are similar to
the experimental results. It can be seen that, most of predicted re-
that the temperature difference between the fuel gas side and air sults obtained by GA are much closer to the middle straight line,
side has a significant effect on the heat transfer rate. which means good agreements with the experimental data. The
As mentioned above, the overall heat transfer coefficient can be averaged relative deviations are lower than 5%, and the maximum
obtained by two different methods: one is obtained by RA method is 4.99% and the minimum is 0.016%.
 M. Zeng et al. / Applied Energy 92 (2012) 725–732 731

12 0.86

0.84 experimental results

10
fitted line
0.82
8
ηfa=1.805-0.0278 h'a
Fitness

0.80

η fa
6
0.78
4
0.76

2 0.74

0 0.72
0 200 400 600 800 1000 34 35 36 37 38 39
Generations h'a / W⋅m ⋅K
-2 -1

Fig. 10. Evolution process of maximizing fitness.

Fig. 12. Variation of fin efficiency with separated heat transfer coefficient for air
side.

100
0.76

90 0.74
-1

experimental results
+5%
k / W⋅m ⋅K

fitted line
-2

0.72
80
-5% ηfg=0.946-0.004 h'g
ηfg

0.70
70
0.68

60 0.66
60 70 80 90 100
-2 -1
ki / W⋅m ⋅K 0.64
50 55 60 65 70 75
Fig. 11. Plot of separated overall heat transfer coefficient against experimental -2 -1
data. h'g / W⋅m ⋅K

Based on the determined overall heat transfer coefficient, the
heat transfer coefficients of air side and gas-side are separated
from the overall heat transfer coefficient by GA. Because the ther-
mal properties and geometry are known, the four unknown vari-
ables c01 , c02 , m1, m2 can be founded successfully with the peculiar
global search characteristics. Finally, the Nusselt numbers of air-
side and gas-side can be acquired as follows.
Nua ga ¼ 0:56Re0:44
a ð18Þ
Nug gg ¼ 0:32Re0:52
g
In Eqs. (18) and (19), the fin efficiency g depends on the heat
transfer coefficient h. The heat transfer coefficient is unknown be-
fore separation. We can acquired the fin efficiency through the sep-
arated heat transfer coefficient h0 and Eq. (9) by iteration method,
as follows.
(1) Suppose an initial value for the heat transfer coefficient h.
(2) Input the heat transfer coefficient h0 separated by GA.
(3) Calculate the term mHc and th(mHc).
(4) Calculate the fin efficiency gf through Eq. (9).
Fig. 13. Variation of fin efficiency with separated heat transfer coefficient for gas
side.
(5) Calculate the overall surface efficiency gi through Eq. (8).
(6) Calculate the heat transfer coefficient h through h = h0 /gi.
(7) If the relative deviation of h in steps (1) and (6) are greater
than a certain value, return to step (3) using the new value
h acquired in step (6); otherwise, the iteration will stop.
Through the iteration method, the relation of fin efficiency gf
ð19Þ with the separated heat transfer coefficient h0 can be acquired as
shown in Figs. 12 and 13. For engineering application, if the value
of Re is known, the value of Nug can be derived through Eqs. (18)
0
and (19). After getting the value of h0 through Nug ¼ h de =k, the fin
efficiency can be acquired through Figs. 12 and 13, and then the
overall surface efficiency can be calculated through Eq. (8). With
the overall surface efficiency, the Nusselt number and heat transfer
coefficient can be acquired. Fig. 14 shows the variation of the
Nusselt number of gas-side with Reynolds number. From the
figure, we can find that the heat transfer coefficient increases with
Reynolds number, and the correlation for Nusselt number is also
acquired.
732 M. Zeng et al. / Applied Energy 92 (2012) 725–732
60
experimental results
fitted line
55
50
0.65
Nug=0.13Reg
Nug
45
40
35
6000 8000 10000
Reg
Fig. 14. Variation of Nu with Re.
5. Conclusions
An experimental study has been carried out to study the perfor-
mances of heat transfer and fluid flow in the plate-fin iron air pre-
heater. The effects of inlet temperature and mass flow rate of flue
gas have been investigated. GA method is applied to obtain the
heat transfer correlation by separating coefficients in the overall
heat transfer coefficient.
The correlation of gas flow performance is obtained at a range of
Re (Re = 5000–11,000), and there exist the critical Reynolds num-
bers from laminar to turbulent flow. The fin efficiency is obtained
by simplifying the structure of fin on the test part; the relationship
between the separated convection heat transfer coefficient and the
fin efficiency is obtained by iteration method. Then, the coefficients
of heat transfer correlations for the gas and air sides of the heat ex-
changer are separated from the overall heat transfer coefficient by
GA method without experimentally knowing wall temperatures.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by China National Funds for Distin-
guished Young Scientists (Grant No. 51025623), the Project of Sin-
opec Engineering Incorporation of China and the Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities.
References
[1] Shah RK, Thonon B, Benforado DM. Opportunities for heat exchanger
applications in environmental systems. Appl Therm Eng 2000;20:631–50.
[2] Sadik K, Liu HT. Heat exchangers: selection, rating and thermal design. 2nd
ed. CRC Press; 2002 [ISBN 0-8493-0902-6].
[3] Rittidech S. Closed-ended oscillating heat-pipe (CEOHP) air-preheater for
energy thrift in a dryer. Appl Energy 2005;81:198–208.
[4] Nuntaphan A, Kiatsiriroat T. Thermal behavior of spiral fin-and-tube heat
exchanger having fly ash deposit. Experimen Therm Fluid Sci 2007;31:1103–9.
[5] Meena P, Rittidech S, Poomsa-ad N. Application of closed-loop oscillating heat-
pipe with check valves (CLOHP/CV) air-preheater for reduced relative-
humidity in drying systems. Appl Energy 2007;84:553–64.
[6] Nuntaphan A, Tiansuwan J, Kiatsiriroat T. Enhancement of heat transport in
thermosyphon air preheater at high temperature with binary working fluid: a
case study of TEG-water. Appl Therm Eng 2002;22:251–66.
[7] Bostjan D, Janez O, Matijia T. A numerical model for the analyses of heat
transfer and leakages in a rotary air preheater. Int J Heat Mass Trans
2006;49:5001–9.
[8] Wang HY, Zhao LL, Zhou QT, Xu ZG, Kim HT. Exergy analysis on the
irreversibility of rotary air preheater in thermal power plant. Energy
2008;33:647–56.
[9] Wang HY, Zhao LL, Xu ZG, Chun WG, Kim HT. The study on heat transfer model
of tri-sectional rotary air preheater based on the semi-analytical method. Appl
Therm Eng 2008;28:1882–8.
[10] Ghodsipour N, Sadrameli M. Experimental and sensitivity analysis of a rotary
air preheater for the flue gas heat recovery. Appl Therm Eng 2003;23:571–80.
[11] Skiepko T, Shah RK. A comparison of rotary regenerator theory and
experimental results for an air preheater for a thermal power plant.
Experimen Therm Fluid Sci 2004;28:257–64.
[12] Wang HY, Bi XL, Zhao LL, Zhou QT, Kim HT, Xu ZG. A study on thermal stress
deformation using analytical methods based on the temperature distribution
of storage material in a rotary air-preheater. Appl Therm Eng 2009;29:2350–7.
[13] Pacheco-Vega A, Diaz G, Sen M, Yang KT, McClain RT. Heat rate predictions in
humid air-water heat exchangers using correlations and neural networks.
ASME J Heat Trans 2001;123:348–54.
[14] Pacheco-Vega A, Sen M, Yang KT. Simultaneous determination of in-and-over-
tube heat transfer correlations in heat exchangers by global regression. Int J
Heat Mass Trans 2003;46:1029–40.
[15] Wang QW, Xie GN, Peng BT, Zeng M. Experimental study and genetic-
algorithm-based correlation on shell-side heat transfer and flow performance
of three different types of shell-and-tube heat exchangers. ASME J Heat Trans
2007;129:1277–85.
[16] Xie GN, Sunden B, Wang QW. Optimization of compact heat exchangers by a
genetic algorithm. Appl Therm Eng 2008;28:895–906.
[17] Wang QW, Liang HX, Xie GN, Luo LQ, Feng ZP. Genetic algorithm optimization
for primary surfaces recuperator of microturbine. ASME J Eng Gas Turb Powers
2007;129:436–42.
[18] Xie GN, Wang QW, Zeng M. Genetic algorithm based design and optimization
of outer-fins and inner-fins tube heat exchangers. ASME Paper GT 2007-
27889; 2007.
[19] Xie GN, Wang QW, Sunden B. Application of a genetic algorithm for thermal
design of fin-and-tube heat exchangers. Heat Trans Eng 2008;29:1–11.
[20] Cai WH, Pacheco-Vega A, Sen M, Yang KT. Heat transfer correlations by
symbolic regression. Int J Heat Mass Trans 2009;49:4352–9.
[21] Zdaniuk GJ, Chamra LM, Keith Walters D. Correlating heat transfer and friction
in helically-finned tubes using artificial neural networks. Int J Heat Mass Trans
2007;50:4713–23.
[22] Pacheco-Vega A, Sen M, Yang KT, et al. Neural network analysis of fin-tube
refrigerating heat exchanger with limited experimental data. Int J Heat Mass
Trans 2001;44:763–70.
[23] Wang QW, Zhang DJ, Xie GN. Experimental study and genetic-algorithm-based
correlation on pressure drop and heat transfer performances of a cross-
corrugated primary surface heat exchanger. ASME J Heat Trans
2009;131:061802.
[24] Deiveegan M, Balaji C, Venkateshan SP. Comparison of various methods for
simultaneous retrieval of surface emissivities and gas properties in gray
participating media. ASME J Heat Trans 2006;128:829–37.
[25] Yang SM, Tao WQ. Heat Transfer. 4th ed. Higher Education Press. [in Chinese].
[26] Goldberg DE. Genetic algorithms in search, optimization and machine
learning. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.; 1989.
[27] Michalewicz Z, Fogel DB. How to solve it: modern heuristics. New
York: Springer; 2000.
[28] Caroll DL. Chemical laser modeling with genetic algorithms. AIAA J
1996;34:338–46.
[29] Caroll DL. Genetic algorithms and optimizing chemical oxygen-iodine lasers.
In: Wilson H, Batra R, Bert C, Davis A, Schapery B, Stewart B, Swinson F, editors.
Developments in theoretical and applied mechanics, vol. XVIII. The University
of Alabama: School of Engineering; 1996. p. 411–24.
[30] Michalewicz Z, Deb K, Schmidt M, Stidsen T. Test-case generator for
constrained parameter optimization techniques. IEEE Trans Evolution
Comput 2004;4:197–215.
[31] Kline SJ, McClintock FA. Describing uncertainties in single-sample
experiments. Mech Eng 1953;75:3–9.