Energy 239 (2022) 122439

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Numerical and experimental investigation on heat transfer

enhancement by adding fins on the pot in a domestic gas stove
Jianyou Wang, Wei Zhang*, Tao Yang, Yunzu Yu, Chuang Liu, Bin Li
College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum (East China), 66 West Changjiang Road, Qingdao, 266580, China

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

Article history: Heat transfer and premixed combustion are two working processes of domestic gas stoves, and poor heat
Received 3 June 2021 transfer is the primary cause of low thermal efficiency. The investigation aims to strengthen the heat
Received in revised form transfer capacity of the pot numerically and experimentally, thus improving the thermal efficiency of gas
1 September 2021
stoves and saving energy. With the increase in loading height Z, the thermal efficiency predicted by
Accepted 23 October 2021
numerical simulation decreases gradually in agreement with the experimental results. After adding fins
Available online 25 October 2021
to the pot wall, it is found that the thermal efficiency increases with an increase in fin height H. The fin
height H ¼ 8 mm is used because of the better compromise between thermal efficiency and the max
Keywords:
Numerical simulation
temperature of fins. By considering the total mass of the pot and thermal efficiency, we select the fin
Heat transfer enhancement number N ¼ 42, and its thermal efficiency is increased by 7.12% compared with the original pot.
Thermal efficiency Experimental results confirm that the increase is 8.2% under the same conditions. Moreover, it is shown
Fin that the thermal efficiency at first increases to a maximum value then decreases with the augment of
Pot inclination angle. The optimal angle occurs at a ¼ 30 , and its thermal efficiency is 9.48% higher than that
Domestic gas stoves of the original pot.
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Recently, many scholars have conducted relevant research in these

Energy is the foundation and driving force for the progress of
human civilization, which is of great significance to promoting
economic and social development. In recent years, China gas mar-
ket has developed rapidly, and gas consumption has been also
increased accordingly [1,2]. The domestic gas stove has the char-
acteristics of beautiful appearance and convenient use, so it has
been widely used as a universal gas utilization equipment [3].
However, most of the gas stoves currently in the market have
generally low thermal efficiency (40%~50%), which causes a large
amount of energy waste in comparison with the standard re-
quirements (more than 55%) [4]. For such large-scale use, even a
small improvement in the thermal efficiency of gas stoves may lead
to significant energy savings. Therefore, a study on domestic gas
stoves to raise energy efficiency, reduce pollutant emissions, and
improve the indoor air environment is vital for energy savings
[5e8]. The overall thermal efficiency of a domestic gas stove is
affected by combustion efficiency and heat transfer performance.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: weizhang22@163.com (W. Zhang).
two aspects.
Hou et al. [9] applied a monocular burner to study the influence
of loading height on combustion flame structure, temperature
distribution, and thermal efficiency by experimental tests. They
found that Type-C flame has the widest temperature distribution
and the highest thermal efficiency in the explored three flame
types. An interesting phenomenon is that the burner can produce
higher thermal efficiency when the loading height is slightly lower
than the tip of the inner flame. The optimal loading height at which
the peak efficiency appears is related to the methane concentration
and the inlet speed. Hou et al. [10] also verified that the swirling
flow burner (SB) is more efficient and slightly higher CO emission
than the conventional radial flow burner (RB) by experiment. The
thermal efficiency of the swirling flow burner with a semi-confined
combustion flame is significantly improved. The research results
have a critical reference significance for improving the thermal
efficiency of domestic gas stoves.
Li et al. [11] conducted an experimental test to investigate the
thermal efficiency and the CO emission rate of a cooker-top burner
under different factors, including Reynolds number, equivalence
ratio, nozzle-to-plate distance, and jet-to-jet spacing. The com-
bined effects of the independent factors were studied depending on

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2021.122439
0360-5442/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al.
Nomenclature
A An empirical constant equal to 4.0 [-]
Ap Area of the inner pot wall surface [m2]
al Absorption coefficient []
B An empirical constant equal to 0.5 [-]
C Specific heat capacity of water [MJ/kg C]
C1ε, C2ε, C3ε Model constants []
Gb Turbulence kinetic energy caused by the buoyancy
force [J]
Gk Turbulence kinetic energy caused by the mean
velocity gradient [J]
H The height (2) of fin [mm]
I Radiation intensity [W/m2]
k The turbulence kinetic energy [J]
M The quality of water [kg]
Mw;i Molecular weight [kg/kmol]
N The fin number []
n Refractive index []
Q Low heating value of fuel [MJ/m3]
Qf The heat supplied by fuel combustion in numerical
simulation [kW]
q Total wall heat flux [kW/m2]
Ri;r The net rate of production of species i by chemical
reaction []
S Source term
! K4]
r Position vector
!
s Direction vector
!0
s Scattering direction vector
s The fin spacing [mm]
the quadratic regression models of the thermal efficiency and the
rate of CO emission. Ko et al. [12] used a single burner to explore the
influence of gas composition on the combustion performance of the
burner. The research aimed at finding the appropriate design or
operational factors of burners using various heating values of nat-
ural gas. Zhen et al. [3] designed two different swirl burners
compared with the traditional Benchmarking cooker. They found
that the swirl burners can produce higher thermal efficiency and a
wider operating range. And the swirl burner II can reduce lower CO
emissions. Unfortunately, there was no proof that the swirl burner I
can reduce pollutant emissions.
Boggavarapu et al. [13] applied an experimental and numerical
method to study the effects of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and
Piped Natural Gas (PNG) on the thermal efficiency of a conventional
domestic burner, respectively. The thermal efficiency of the burner
using LPG as fuel is improved by adding a circular insert and radiant
sheet. Nevertheless, for the burner using PNG as fuel, the loading
height as a crucial factor has a more significant effect on thermal
efficiency than the design modifications. An increase in thermal
efficiency is 2.5% for LPG by the design modifications and is 10% for
PNG at the optimal loading height. The numerical simulation as a
valuable tool to study domestic gas stoves in this work was proven.
Das et al. [14] numerically investigated the velocity and tem-
perature fields of a domestic liquefied petroleum gas stove burner,
as well as the performance of the burner for different operational
parameters, including the equivalence ratio of primary fuel-air
mixture, fuel flow rate, loading height, and vessel size. They
found that the optimal value of the equivalence ratio is 1.4. The
thermal efficiency of the burner is improved gradually with the
increase of vessel diameter and gas flow rate. In addition, the
2
Energy 239 (2022) 122439
T1 The initial temperature of water [ C]
T2 The final temperature of water [ C]
t Time [s]
u Velocity in the x direction [m/s]
V Fuel consumption [m3]
X The horizontal distance between the temperature
measurement point and the pot wall
x Coordinate distance [m]
YM Fluctuation effect of dissipation rate in compressible
turbulence flow
YP The mass fraction of any product species, P
Y< The mass fraction of a particular reactant<
Z Loading height [mm]
a The inclination angle of fin [ ]
h Measured thermal efficiency []
hb The boiling efficiency in numerical simulation []
ε The turbulence dissipation rate [m2/s3]
r Density [kg/m3]
m Dynamic viscosity [N,s/m2]
s k ,s ε Turbulent Prandtl number
n0i;r The stoichiometric coefficient for reactant i in
reaction r
00
nj;r The stoichiometric coefficient for product j in
reaction r
ss Scattering coefficient
s Stefan-Boltzmann constant 5.669  108 [Wm2
Ф Phase function
U0 Solid angle
optimal loading height where the peak efficiency occurs is at
20 mm for this design study. Unfortunately, they didn't conduct
experimental studies to verify these conclusions.
Wichangarm et al. [15] proposed a novel method in predicting
the thermal efficiency of an energy-saving burner using LPG as fuel.
They verified that the flow velocity and combustion temperature
obtained from the numerical method agrees well with the experi-
mental results. Moreover, they deduced an efficiency correlation
equation between the numerical method and the experiment,
which can predict the thermal efficiency of the original burner (EB)
beyond the experimental range. The increment of thermal effi-
ciency predicted by the correlation equation for two burners (EB-
W, EB-WT) was reasonably close to the experiments. Therefore, the
proposed method for predicting the thermal efficiency of burners is
a critical improvement in this work.
It is found that most of the studies can be summarized as
adjusting the supply of fuel and primary air or changing the geo-
metric and physical parameters of burners, thus optimizing the
combustion of the flue-air mixture or enhancing heat transfer.
However, there are few researches on improving the heat transfer
capacity of the pot wall. At present, domestic appliances are
developing towards intellectualization and miniaturization
[16e19]. The method of enlarging the heat transfer area by
increasing the pot diameter to improve the thermal efficiency of
domestic gas stoves may not meet the development requirements.
Moreover, the enhanced heat transfer technology with the advan-
tages of energy savings and environmental protection has attracted
considerable attention [20e23]. And the technique is applied in
industrial equipment but is less found in domestic appliances.
Therefore, the present study aims at enhancing heat transfer to the
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al. Energy 239 (2022) 122439

pot wall in domestic gas stoves using numerical and experimental

methods. The main content of this investigation is to add fins on the
pot wall, then the shape, spacing, and inclination angle of the fin are
studied.

2. Experimental method

Fig. 1 shows the schematic diagram of the whole experimental

test system. The cylinder is filled with commercial Liquefied Pe-
troleum Gas (LPG), whose constituents are analyzed by the Scion
GC chromatographic analyzer. The outlet pressure of the LPG from
the cylinder is reduced by the pressure reducing valve to about
2800 Pa, which is stipulated by the industry standard of commonly
applied domestic gas stoves [24]. The consumption and the pres-
sure of LPG during the experiment are recorded by the membrane
flow meter and the pressure gauge, respectively. The temperature
of different positions is measured by a 1.5 mm diameter K-type
thermocouple with an error of 0.75%. Considering the thermo- Fig. 2. The partition of the computational domain.

couple has a small diameter and the measured points are far away
from the central flame, the thermocouple has little influence on the
combustion flame in this investigation. And a data acquisition de-
vice is then used to display the temperature measured by the
thermocouple. A 340 mm diameter pot contains a certain quality of
water whose initial temperature (T1) is measured with a ther-
mometer before the heating. The temperature goes up gradually
with the heating caused by the mixture combustion. After the
water in the pot reaches 85  C, closing the valve of the gas stove and
turning the stirrer, the highest temperature value shown in the
thermometer is the final temperature (T2). The thermal efficiency
(h) is calculated by Eq. (1),
M  C  ðT2  T1 Þ
h¼  100%
V Q
where M is the quality of water in the pot, C is the specific heat
capacity of water, T1 is the initial temperature of the water, T2 is the
final temperature of the water, V is the gas consumption obtained
from the membrane flow meter, and Q is the low heating value of
the fuel. This experimental test is carried out according to the Na-
tional Standard of the People's Republic of China domestic gas
cooking appliances GB16410-2007 [24].
3. Numerical method
The numerical method of this paper aims to strengthen the heat
transfer capacity of the pot by analyzing the velocity and temper-
ature distributions around the pot wall, to improve the thermal
efficiency of the gas stove and save energy. Numerical simulation as
a research method can enable researchers to design and optimize
(1)
products in a short time and at a low cost. Therefore, the method
has been widely accepted by scholars in recent years. However, the
numerical models in this software have some unavoidable differ-
ences as compared to the experiment. It is necessary to verify the
models' accuracy before applying numerical simulation in this

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental test system.

3
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al. Energy 239 (2022) 122439

Fig. 3. (a) Geometric model diagram, (b) external mesh with boundary conditions, and (c) internal mesh with boundary conditions for Part I.

Table 1
Models algorithm and boundary conditions for Part I.

NO BOUNDARY CONDITIONS SELECTION OF BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

1 Inlet Mass-flow-inlet (acquired by experiment and calculation)

2 Outlet Pressure-outlet (0 Pa)
3 Wall Fixed temperature (acquired by experiment)
4 Solver Pressure-based
5 Time Steady

Fig. 4. Mesh and boundary conditions for Part II.

study. In the actual process of this experiment, the temperature of
the water in the pot increases gradually with the heating time, and
finally, the boiling point will be reached that can lead to a boiling
phenomenon. That is a very complex transient process in numerical
simulation. Furthermore, too many grids and complex models may
spend a lot of time and waste calculating resources in this study.
In order to address this problem, the simulation process in this
paper is assumed that the inner pot wall temperature is a constant
temperature of the water at boiling state, regardless of the influ-
ence of the water and steam circulation [13e15]. The reason for the
assumption is that the water in the pot has a better heat transfer
capability than the flue gas around the pot wall so that the heat

4
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al. Energy 239 (2022) 122439

Table 2
Models algorithm and boundary conditions for Part II.

NO BOUNDARY CONDITIONS SELECTION OF BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

1 Mixture-inlet Velocity-inlet (acquired by Part I and calculation)

2 Air-inlet Pressure-inlet (0 Pa)
3 Outlet Pressure-outlet (0 Pa)
4 The pot wall surface Fixed temperature (403 K),
5 Solver Pressure-based
6 Time Steady

transfer process of the water is simplified. Moreover, the simulation

under steady-state is easy to investigate the fluid flow and the heat
transfer in the overall computational domain.

3.1. Models and boundary conditions

It is a complex simulation to consider both the mixing flow the

premixed combustion in the entire computational domain. It is not
easy to be simulated all these processes at once. Moreover, the
burner with many fire holes which have a small size requires a
denser grid than other locations. If all the locations are put together,
the entire computational domain will be generated too many grids.
The calculations are going to be more complicated. Therefore, in
order to avoid generating too numerous grids and resulting in the
waste of computing resources, the computational domain is
divided into two parts, which are simulated separately shown in
Fig. 2 [15].
The solution step of this partitioning method is the data
including the mass flow rate, temperature, and components of the
fuel-air mixture, as well as the wall temperature obtained from the
experimental test, is used as the boundary conditions of Part I to
conduct simulation, then the calculation results including velocity Fig. 5. The thermal efficiency for different mesh number.

and temperature of the Part I outlet are deemed as the boundary

conditions of Part II to complete the numerical simulation of Part II.
temperature in this simulation is a fixed value measured by a
Unstructured tetrahedral grids are generated in these two
thermocouple under the experimental condition. The material is
computational domains, respectively. The grid density is increased
set as the steel of stationary and no-slip. The turbulence model is
for smaller positions to obtain more accurate results.
selected as the Standard k-ε Model (Eq. (2), (3)) [13,15], which has
the superiority of stability, economy, high precision, and wide
3.1.1. Models and boundary conditions for part I
range of applications.
The domestic gas stove used in this investigation is a part-
premixed burner. The fuel gas with a certain speed under a "  #
v v v mt vk
certain pressure entrains the primary air from the external envi- ðrkÞ þ ðrkui Þ ¼ mþ þ Gk þ Gb  rε  YM þ Sk
ronment to form a mixture in the mixing tube, and the mixture is
vt vxi vxj sk vxj
burnt at the head of the burner. The models of geometric and (2)
physical as well as the generated mesh in Part I are shown in Fig. 3.
It is assumed that the mixing process of the fuel gas and the pri-
"
v v v
mary air has finished before entering Part I. The volume flow rate ðrεÞ þ ðrεui Þ ¼
vt vxi vxj
and the constituents of the fuel gas are measured by the membrane
flow meter and the chromatograph, respectively. The mass fraction   #
m vε ε ε2
of the fuel-air mixture is calculated when the primary air coeffi-  mþ t þ C1ε ðGk þ C3ε Gb Þ  C2ε r þ Sε (3)
sε vxj k k
cient is 0.65. The constituents and mass fraction of the mixture are
4.7% C3H8, 3% C3H6, 1.6% C4H10, and 21% O2, and the other is N2. Species Transport Model is used to simulate the mixing of the
Moreover, without the combustion process in Part I, the solid wall fuel gas and the primary air. The conservation equations of mo-
mentum, energy, and mass are applied in the simulation process.
The effects of gravity and buoyancy on the fluid flow are considered
Table 3
The total number of elements and nodes for different mesh number. in the computational domain. The ambient temperature is set as
298 K. Other boundary conditions of Part I are shown in Table 1.
Mesh number The total number of elements The total number of nodes

M1 899,709 153,035
3.1.2. Models and boundary conditions for part II
M2 1,172,824 199,457
M3 1,219,017 207,655 Part II involves fluid flow, heat transfer, and premixed com-
M4 1,487,592 251,594 bustion. Hence, its numerical models and boundary conditions are
M5 1,670,962 281,593 more complex as compared to Part I. The models of geometric and
M6 1,929,798 327,933 physical as well as the mesh for Part II are shown in Fig. 4. The
M7 1,941,996 330,139
turbulence model is adopted with the same Standard k-ε Model as
5
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al. Energy 239 (2022) 122439

Fig. 6. The three measurement levels and the loading height Z.

Fig. 7. The comparisons of temperature distributions at Z ¼ 18 mm (a) and Z ¼ 30 mm (b).

in radiation models.

 ! !! ! ! sT 4
V , I r ; s s þ ða þ ss ÞI r ; s ¼ an2
p
4ðp
ss ! !0  ! !
þ I r ; s Ф s , s dU0 (4)
4p
0

Species Transport Model is also selected to simulate the mixing

flow process between the mixture and the secondary air before and
after the chemical reactions. The Eddy-Dissipation Model (Eq. (5),
(6)) [15], suitable for turbulence and rapid chemical reactions, is
used in the Volumetric Reactions Model.
!
ε Y<
Ri;r ¼ n0i;r Mw;i Ar min< (5)
k n0<;r Mw;<

0 1
P
B YP C
εB C
Ri;r ¼ n0i;r Mw;i ABr B P C (6)
Fig. 8. The effect of loading height on thermal efficiency. kB
@PN C
A
n00j;r Mw;j
j

Part I. The Discrete Ordinates (DO) Radiation Model (Eq. (4)) [15] is The chemical reaction mechanism involving four reactions is
chosen in this part because it has higher precision and a wide range applied (the one-step butane oxidation reaction and the one-step
6
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al.
Fig. 9. Temperature (a) and velocity (b) distributions in the mid-plane for the original pot.
propylene oxidation reaction are added to the two-step propane
combustion mechanism) [13,14,25]. In the present study, the tem-
perature of the inner pot wall is set as 403 K under the steady-state.
The reason is that the overheating of 30 K is assumed based on the
water boiling of 373 K. The thickness of the pot is about 2 mm, and
its material is solid steel. The predicted thermal efficiency obtained
from the numerical method (Eq. (7)) is the boiling efficiency hb,
which is defined as the ratio of the total energy through the inner
pot wall and the heat Qf supplied by the fuel combustion [15].
q  Ap
hb ¼  100%
Qf
Other boundary conditions for Part II are shown in Table 2.
The convergence condition of the numerical calculations is
commanded into a two-step in this investigation. The first step is to
ensure all residual values (except continuity) are less than 106.
And the continuity is less than 104. The reason is that the conti-
nuity residual is not easy to be decreased for such complex calcu-
lations. The second step is that the monitored Total Sensible Heat
Transfer Rate through the inner pot wall surface is unchanged, then
it maintains constant after over 2000 iterations calculations. It is
considered that the calculations have been completed after the
two-step.
3.2. Mesh independence study
The mesh independence study is a very critical procedure in
numerical simulation. For a calculation under the same models and
boundary conditions, increasing the mesh number on the
Fig. 10. The physical parameters of the fin.
Energy 239 (2022) 122439
calculation results has little influence when the mesh number
reaches a certain level. In the present study, we investigate seven
mesh numbers (Table 3) for the same geometric model. Fig. 5 shows
the thermal efficiency for different mesh numbers. It is seen from
this figure that the thermal efficiency of M4~M7 is stable, and the
maximum error value in thermal efficiency is less than 1%. There-
fore, it is considered that the thermal efficiency is not to change
with the increase of mesh number. The selected mesh number in
this investigation is M5.
3.3. Models verification
(7)
It is well-known that models verification is also a crucial pro-
cedure to ensure the accuracy of numerical simulation. Fig. 6 shows
the locations of the temperature measurement points on the three
different levels and the loading height Z in the geometric model. For
one of the three levels, the number of the selected measurement
points is 13 in the numerical simulation and is 7 in the experi-
mental test. The distance from the pot wall X is defined as the
horizontal distance between the temperature measurement point
and the pot wall. The loading height Z is the minimum vertical
distance from the top of the burner to the pot bottom wall. Based on
the same models and boundary conditions, the temperature on the
three levels is measured at the loading height of Z ¼ 18 mm and
Z ¼ 30 mm. Moreover, the effects of the loading height on thermal
efficiency are studied numerically and experimentally.
Fig. 7 shows the comparisons of temperature distributions ob-
tained from the numerical simulation and the experiment at the
loading height Z ¼ 18 mm and Z ¼ 30 mm. It is observed from this
figure that a closer distance from the pot wall can cause a more
significant difference between the temperature obtained from the
numerical method and the one measured by the experiment at the
same position. And at Z ¼ 30 mm, the distance from the pot wall to
the measured temperature point is 5 mm, but the maximum dif-
ference is over 200 K at level L3. The reasons for this difference may
be the simplified process or the ideal boundary conditions in the
numerical simulation, which lead to a higher temperature than the
experiment within the range of 25 mm from the pot wall [13].
However, the temperature value obtained from the numerical
method preferable agrees with the experimental data at the range
of 25e65 mm. If only considering the relative change of tempera-
ture value, the temperature distributions from the numerical
simulation in variation tendency agree well with the experiment.
Fig. 8 shows the effect of the loading height on thermal effi-
ciency. It is seen from this figure that with the increase in loading
height, the efficiencies obtained from both two methods present a
descending tendency, which is consistent with the conclusions
studied by Hou et al. [9] and Ashman et al. [26]. Moreover, at
Z ¼ 30 mm, the thermal efficiency for the numerical simulation is
about 46% and for the experimental measurement is about 48.6%.
The absolute difference between the two methods is less than 3%. It
is considered that the numerical simulation is in agreement with
7
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al.
Fig. 11. The local temperature distributions in the mid-plane for different fin shapes.
Fig. 12. The temperature distributions of the pots with different fin shapes.
Fig. 13. The effects of fin height on thermal efficiency and the max temperature of fins.
the experiment in this investigation. Furthermore, the same
decreasing tendency in thermal efficiency can also verify the
reasonability of the selected models in numerical simulation.
8
Energy 239 (2022) 122439
Fig. 14. The spatial location of the fins on the pot wall.
4. Results and discussion
The main purpose of this section is to enhance the heat transfer
capacity of the pot wall and thus improve the thermal efficiency of
the domestic gas stove. Based on the case of the loading height
Z ¼ 18 mm mentioned in the previous section, the same model and
boundary conditions are selected for the following study. The
steady-state temperature and velocity distributions are analyzed by
numerical simulation. In addition, these new pots with different fin
structures (shape, spacing, and inclination angle) are proposed
based on the original pot.
It is well known that temperature and velocity distributions are
considered to be two vital factors affecting the heat transfer from
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al. Energy 239 (2022) 122439

Fig. 15. Local temperature distributions for different fin numbers.

Table 4
The average velocity and the average surface heat transfer coefficient.

The fin number N 21 42 63 84

The average velocity in the computational domain (ms1) 0.359 0.351 0.345 0.339

The average surface heat transfer coefficient (Wm2K1) 124.7 108.4 102.6 90.8

Table 5
The relationship between thermal efficiency and the fin spacing (the fin number).

The fin spacing (s/mm) The fin number (N) Thermal efficiency (h/%) The increment of thermal efficiency (d/%) The total mass of the pot (including the fins) (g)

e 0 49.57 0 2010
26 21 52.39 2.82 2241
12 42 56.69 4.3 2472
7.4 63 60.75 4.06 2703
5.4 84 64.04 3.29 2934

the flue gas to the pot wall. Fig. 9 shows the steady-state temper-
ature (a) and velocity (b) distributions for the original pot. It is
found that the mixture of fuel and primary air is sprayed from the
fire holes at a certain speed, then burnt to form the high-
temperature flue gas. The highest temperature of the flame is
about 2270 K and the maximum speed of flue gas is around 2.98 m/
s. The flue gas moves upwards along the pot wall and may transfer
heat to the pot wall in the forms of convection and radiation. At the
same time, the flue gas exchanges heat with the surrounding
environment. Finally, the temperature of flue gas escaping to the
external environment through the top boundary of the computa-
tional domain is 462e627 K and the speed is about 1.49e1.74 m/s.
The heat in the flue gas is not utilized efficiently and is wasted in
the environment. Therefore, a critical way of improving efficiency is
to enhance the heat exchange with the pot wall or reduce un-
wanted heat transfer to the surrounding environment.

Fig. 16. The combustion flame under (a) the pot without fins, (b) the pot with fins N ¼ 42 by experiment.

9
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al. Energy 239 (2022) 122439

used in this investigation. The thickness and length of the fins are
fixed at 2 mm and 70 mm, respectively. The fin shape can be altered
by varying the fin height (2) H and the height (1) 25-H, which can
ensure the same heat transfer surface area for different fin shapes.
The total fin height is set as 25 mm because the main high-
temperature fields occur within 25 mm from the pot wall, and
the fins installed at the location are more significant to enhance
heat transfer.
Fig. 11 shows the local temperature distributions near the fins in
the mid-plane for different fin shapes. It is found from this figure
that compared with the original pot, the finned pot can reduce the
height of the high-temperature flue gas rising along the pot wall,
resulting in the combustion flame mainly concentrated in the lower
middle of the pot. In addition, these fins increase the heat transfer
area with the flue gas and reduce heat loss to the surrounding
environment, thereby enhancing the heat transfer capacity of the
pot. That is one reason why the pot with fins can improve thermal
efficiency. Furthermore, it is also seen that the high-temperature
flue gas at the fin height H ¼ 12 mm is more concentrated in the
lower part of the pot than that at the fin height H ¼ 8 mm.
Fig. 12 shows the temperature distributions of the pots with
Fig. 17. The effect of the loading height on thermal efficiency by experiment.
different fin shapes. When the fin height H changes from 6 to
12 mm, the max temperature of fins increases from 564 to 664 K.
Fig. 13 shows the effects of fin height on thermal efficiency and the
Furthermore, it is also seen that the main fields of the high-
max temperature of fins. It is found that with the increase in fin
temperature flue gas occur within the range of 25 mm in the vi-
height, the thermal efficiency can be improved by less than 2%,
cinity of the pot wall, where the temperature is higher and the
while the max temperature of the fins is increased by 100 K. The
velocity is faster as contrasted with other ranges. The flame tem-
max temperature has a more significant enhancement than the
perature in the lower half is higher than the one in the upper half,
thermal efficiency with the increase of fin height H. A severe
but the velocity of the flue gas adjacent to the pot bottom wall is
consequence is that the fins work in a high-temperature zone for a
relatively low. Therefore, the fins are installed in the middle and
long time, which will lead to an adverse effect on their working life.
lower parts of the pot wall to enhance the heat transfer that may be
Therefore, the fin height of H ¼ 8 mm is selected because it has a
more conducive to improving thermal efficiency.
better compromise between thermal efficiency and the max tem-
perature of the fins. The efficiency is improved to a certain extent,
4.1. The selection of fin shape
and the fins on the pot wall will not be subjected to excessive
temperatures to affect their service life. The pots with fins in
The fin shape is a critical parameter to enhance heat transfer for
thermal efficiency are a significant improvement as compared to
different applications. In this section, these new pots with different
the original pot. It is also proven adding the fins to the pot wall is a
fin shapes are studied numerically. The maximum temperature of
significant method to enhance heat transfer.
the fins operating in a burning flame is explored. Fig. 10 shows the
geometrical model of the pot with fins and the physical parameters
4.2. The research of fin spacing

Since the fin spacing s (the fin number N) can directly affect the

heat transfer area between the pot wall surface and the high-
temperature flue gas, which is another critical parameter in addi-
tion to the fin shape. The spatial location of the fins on the pot wall
is shown in Fig. 14. Fin spacing s is the minimum distance between
the fins on the pot wall. Based on the conclusions of the former
section, the fins with the height of H ¼ 8 mm are seen as a base case
to investigate the effect of the fin spacing on heat transfer through
the numerical method. Then, an experimental comparison between
a kind of pot with a certain number of fins and the original pot
without fins may further validate the accuracy of using the nu-
merical simulation to predict the thermal efficiency of the domestic
gas stove.
Fig. 15 shows the local temperature distributions for different fin
numbers by numerical simulation. Table 4 shows the average ve-
locity of the entire computational domain and the average surface
heat transfer coefficient of the overall pot wall (including the fins).
When the fin number increases from 21 to 84, the local tempera-
ture distribution near the pot wall is significantly affected, while
the local maximum temperature of the flue gas does not change
much. The reason is that with the increase of the fin number, the
flue gas rising along the pot wall is subjected to the greater resis-
Fig. 18. Schematic diagram of the fin inclination angle on the pot wall. tance at the fin locations, which leads to the decrease of the average
10
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al. Energy 239 (2022) 122439

Fig. 19. Local temperature distributions for different fin angles.

Fig. 20. Local velocity distributions for different fin angles.

velocity and thus the average surface heat transfer coefficient
(Table 4). However, since the more fins generate a greater heat
transfer area, the more heat is transferred to the pot wall.
Furthermore, the temperature can also be decreased rapidly after
the flue gas passes through the fin locations. It means that the heat
in the flue gas is transferred quickly to the pot wall, thus reducing
heat loss to the environment.
Table 5 shows the relationship between the fin spacing s (the fin
number N) and thermal efficiency, the total mass of the whole pot.
The thermal efficiency increases gradually with the increase of the
fin number, while the increment increases first and then decreases.
In addition, when the fin number reaches 84, the thermal efficiency
is over 64%, which is an increase of 14.47% as compared to the
original pot. However, due to the increase of the fin number, the
whole pot in the total mass is also improved by 924 g. The pot is too
heavy that may cause severe inconvenience for practical use.
Therefore, after considering a reasonable compromise between
thermal efficiency and the mass of the whole pot, the fin number
N ¼ 42 for this investigation is selected for subsequent research.
Compared with the original pot without fins, the increase of ther-
mal efficiency for the finned pot N ¼ 42 is 7.12%, while the
improvement in the total mass of the whole pot is only 462 g.
According to the results of the numerical method, the following
experimental measurements are conducted for the pot with fins
N ¼ 42. Fig. 16 shows the combustion flame of (a) the pot without
fins, and (b) the pot with fins N ¼ 42 at the loading height
Z ¼ 18 mm. Compared with the original pot, the combustion flame
of the finned pot can flow between the fins, which improves the
heat transfer capacity of the whole pot and reduces the heat loss to
the surrounding environment. Fig. 17 shows an experimental

11
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al.
Fig. 21. The effects of fin inclination angle on thermal efficiency and the wall heat flux.
variation of thermal efficiency of these two pots with the loading
height. It is seen from this figure that the increase of thermal effi-
ciency measured by the experiment for the finned pot N ¼ 42 is
8.2%, which approximately agrees with 7.12% predicted by the nu-
merical method. The reliability of the numerical method is also
further verified by the comparison in this investigation. Moreover,
with the increase in loading height, the thermal efficiency of the
finned pot at first increases to a peak value and then decreases. The
peak thermal efficiency appears at the height Z ¼ 26 mm, which is
about 60.28%. But for the original pot, thermal efficiency is
decreased steadily. The maximum efficiency occurs at Z ¼ 18 mm,
which is about 50%. Thus, adding fins on the pot wall may change
the combustion space and heat transfer area, which can affect the
optimal loading height.
4.3. The optimization of the fin inclination angle
The inclination angle can strengthen the turbulence intensive of
fluid that can effectively enhance the heat transfer performance.
Therefore, it is also of great significance to optimize the fin incli-
nation angle for heat transfer enhancement. Based on the conclu-
sions of the fin shape H ¼ 8 mm and the fin number N ¼ 42, this
section aims to investigate the effects of the pot with different fin
angles on heat transfer and fluid flow, so that further optimize the
heat transfer performance of the finned pot. Fig. 18 shows the
schematic diagram of the fin inclination angle on the pot wall
surface. The range of inclination angle a is from 0 to 50 .
The local temperature distributions for different inclination
angles are depicted in Fig. 19. It is observed that with the increase in
inclination angle, the high-temperature flue gas at the fins position
is gradually far from the pot wall. This phenomenon is evident
shown at a ¼ 40 , 50 , while that is not clear when a ¼ 0 ~30 . That
is also found in local velocity distributions by Fig. 20. Flow direction
at the fin position is changed significantly when the angle a is 40 ,
50 . The velocity vector line at the fins locations for a ¼ 30 ~50 is
Table 6
The average turbulent intensity and the average surface heat transfer coefficient.
The fin inclination angle (a/ )
The average turbulent intensity (%)
The average surface heat transfer coefficient (Wm2K1)
Energy 239 (2022) 122439
more intensive than that for a ¼ 0 ~20 . The reason may be that
with the increase in fin inclination angle, the flue gas rising along
the pot wall is subjected to a stronger flowing resistance at the fins
location, forcing the flue gas to diffuse into the surrounding envi-
ronments. The high-temperature flue gas detaches from the pot
wall resulting in a worsening heat transfer.
Fig. 21 shows the effects of fin angle on thermal efficiency and
the wall heat flux. Table 6 shows the average turbulent intensity
and the average surface heat transfer coefficient of the overall pot
wall (including the fins). It is seen from this figure that with the
augment of inclination angle, the wall heat flux excluding the fins
part gradually decreases. When a ¼ 50 , the minimum heat flux of
the non-fin part is about 1.56 kW/m2. Moreover, the total wall flux
and thermal efficiency increase firstly to a maximum value then
gradually decrease with the augment of inclination angle. When
a ¼ 30 , the maximum total wall heat flux is 2.75 kW/m2 and its
thermal efficiency is 59.05%. The explanation for the variation of
thermal efficiency is as follows. With the augment of the inclination
angle, the turbulence of the flue gas at the fin position is more
intense, and the average heat transfer coefficient between the flue
gas and the wall surface increases accordingly (Table 6), thus
enhancing the heat transfer performance of the pot. Unfortunately,
as the angle continues to augment, the stronger flowing resistance
at the fin position causes the flue gas to move away from the pot
wall, diffusing into the surrounding atmosphere (Figs. 19 and 20).
That leads to a decrease in the turbulence intensive and the average
surface heat transfer coefficient, thus reducing the wall heat flux
and the thermal efficiency. Therefore, an appropriate increase in
the fin inclination angle will enhance the heat transfer to the pot
wall, while an excessive increase may result in a worsening heat
transfer to decrease the thermal efficiency. In the present study, the
optimal inclination angle of the fin occurs at a ¼ 30 , where the
improvement of thermal efficiency is 2.36% as compared to a ¼ 0 ,
and 9.48% as contrasted with the original pot.
5. Conclusions
The main objective of this paper is to enhance the heat transfer
capacity of the pot, thus improving the thermal efficiency of the gas
stoves and saving energy. The temperature distributions numeri-
cally in the relative tendency agree with the experimental mea-
surements at the loading heights of Z ¼ 18 mm and Z ¼ 30 mm. The
thermal efficiencies obtained from numerical simulation for
different loading heights agree well with the experiments that also
verify the reliability and accuracy of the numerical method. After
that, based on the loading height Z ¼ 18 mm, the designs and op-
timizations in the shape, spacing, and inclination angle of the fin on
the pot wall are carried out according to the theory of heat transfer
enhancement.
(1) As the fin height H changes from 6 to 12 mm, the thermal
efficiency obtained from the numerical method yields an
increase of less than 2%, while the max temperature of fins is
increased by 100 K. The fins working in a high-temperature
environment for a long time can affect its service life. The
selected optimal fin shape in this study is H ¼ 8 mm by
0 10 20 30 40 50
28.18 28.79 29.48 29.56 29.37 28.47
108.4 110.4 114.2 114.8 112.9 108.9
12
J. Wang, W. Zhang, T. Yang et al.
considering a compromise between thermal efficiency and
the max temperature of fins.
(2) In the case of fin shape H ¼ 8 mm, the thermal efficiency
obtained by numerical method increases significantly with
the increase of fin number N. After considering thermal ef-
ficiency and total mass, the selected fin number in this study
is N ¼ 42. Compared with the original pot, the optimized pot
in thermal efficiency is an improvement of 7.12%, while the
total mass is only increased by 462 g. Moreover, experi-
mental results show that the thermal efficiency for the pot
with 42 fins increases first and then gradually decreases with
the increase of loading height. And it yields an increase of
8.2% as compared to the original pot at the same loading
height.
(3) Based on the fin number N ¼ 42 and the fin shape H ¼ 8 mm,
the thermal efficiency obtained by the numerical method
also first increases to a peak value then gradually decreases
with the augment of the fin inclination angle. The optimal fin
inclination angle occurs at a ¼ 30 , where its thermal effi-
ciency is improved by 2.36% as compared to a ¼ 0 and is
increased by 9.48% as contrasted with the original pot. An
appropriate increase in the fin inclination angle can enhance
the heat transfer, while the excessive increase will lead to
poor heat transfer performance.
In the present study, compared with the original pot without
fins, the thermal efficiency of the optimized new pot with fins is
increased by 9.48%, which will be a significant energy-saving for
such large-scale use of gas stoves.
Credit author statement
Jianyou Wang: Methodology, Validation, Writing e original
draft, Writing e review & editing. Wei Zhang: Conceptualization,
Funding acquisition, Writing e review & editing. Tao Yang: Data
curation. Yunzu Yu: Investigation. Chuang Liu: Supervision. Bin Li:
Methodology.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Major Basic Research Project of
the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province [grant
number ZR2019ZD11].
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