International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

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

Thermal–hydraulic performance of fin-and-oval tube compact heat

exchangers with innovative design of corrugated fin patterns
Ahmadali Gholami a, Mazlan A. Wahid a, H.A. Mohammed b,⇑
a
High Speed Reacting Flow Laboratory, Department of Thermofluids, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia
b
Department of Energy Engineering, Technical College of Engineering, Duhok Polytechnic University (DPU), 61 Zakho Road, 1006 Mazi Qr, Duhok-Kurdistan Region, Iraq

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

Article history: The flow field inside the heat exchangers is associated with maximum heat transfer, minimum pressure
Received 11 June 2016 drop and smallest pumping power. During the recent decades, the developments in the application of
Received in revised form 9 September 2016 longitudinal vortex generators as an effective technique and important research topic have increased
Accepted 10 September 2016
the heat transfer enhancement in the design of compact heat exchangers. The main motivation of this
Available online 6 October 2016
research is to study thermal–hydraulic performance characteristics in a tube bank compact heat exchan-
ger with introducing new design of fins and tube by using computational fluid dynamics approach.
Keywords:
One-corrugated and three-corrugated fins with oval tubes are innovative design of the FTCHE (fin-and-
Fin-and-tube compact heat exchanger
One-corrugated
tube compact heat exchanger) that promises a large leap in the development of minimized FTCHEs with
Three-corrugated increased thermal efficiency. The major advantage of such design is its ability to produce substantially
Corrugated fin patterns increased thermal efficiency and performance criteria of FTCHE. The investigation of thermal–hydraulic
Heat transfer enhancement performance criteria is conducted for Reynolds number in the range of 200–900. This study shows that
Thermal–hydraulic performance the flow distinction between plain and corrugated fins has a profound influence on the thermal-
hydrodynamic performance. The results reveal that the corrugated fins can considerably advance the
thermal efficiency of the FTCHE with a moderate pressure loss penalty. The computational results indi-
cate that the average Nusselt number for the FTCHE with corrugated fin can be increased up to 20.0% over
the baseline case and the corresponding pressure difference decreased up to 19.0%. In addition, the
results show that the average value of performance in one-corrugated and three-corrugated fins and oval
tube compact heat exchangers up to 5% and 15% over the baseline case, respectively. The newly designed
fin with oval tube shows potential improvement of heat transfer performance and moderate pressure loss
in the FTCHE compared with the baseline case.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction There are various types of compact heat exchangers in manu-

The need of high performance of thermal systems in many engi-
neering applications has stimulated enormous interest to find var-
ious methods to improve heat transfer rate in the thermal
engineering systems. The subject of heat transfer enhancement
has caused significant interest to develop compact thermal devices
in order to obtain a high efficiency, low cost, light weight, and
small size as much as possible. A heat exchanger is a combination
of components that provides easier and more efficient thermal
energy transmission joining two or further fluids and contacting
a fluid with a solid surface each at different temperatures. The
fluids can be mixed or unmixed.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: gholamifdg@gmail.com (A. Gholami),
yahoo.com (H.A. Mohammed).
facturing process. Heat exchangers with tube bank in cross flow
are of great applied attention in various thermal and chemical
engineering processes. The main purpose of using them are to
increase or decrease the temperature and heat transfer from one
fluid to another. The improvements in the performance of the heat
exchangers have attracted many researchers for a long time as they
are of great technical, economical, and ecological importance. Per-
formance improvement becomes essential particularly in heat
exchangers with gases because the thermal resistance of gases
can be 10–50 times as large as that of liquids, which requires large
heat transfer surface per unit of volume on the gas side [1].
Compact heat exchangers are characterized by a large heat
transfer surface area per unit of volume of the exchanger. This
resulted in reduced space, weight, supporting structure, energy
requirement and cost; improved process design, plant layout, and
Hussein.dash@ processing conditions; and low fluid inventory compared to

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2016.09.028
0017-9310/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
574 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592

Nomenclature

A total heat transfer surface area [m2] T temperature [K]

Ac minimum cross-sectional [m2] Um mean velocity at the minimum flow cross-sectional
Ao total surface area [m2] [m s
1]
Cp specific heat [J/kg K]
Dc tube outside diameter [m] Greek letters
Do fin collar outside diameter [m] df fin thickness [m]
Dh hydraulic diameter [m] l dynamic viscosity [kg/ms]
f friction factor q density [kg/m3]
F pumping power factor U diffusion coefficient
Fl fin length [m] / transport property
Fw fin width [m]
Fp fin pitch [m] Subscript
h heat transfer coefficient [W/m2 K] in inlet
j Colburn factor m mean
J heat transfer performance factor
out outlet
JF overall thermal hydraulic performance w wall
k thermal conductivity [W/m K]
N number of tube row
Nu Nusselt number (h Dh/k) Abbreviations
mf mass flow rate [kg/s] LVGs longitudinal vortex generators
RVGs rectangular vortex generators
DP pressure drop [pa]
Pl longitudinal pitch [m] VGs vortex generators
Pr Prandtl number CFOT corrugated fin and oval tube
Pt transverse pitch [m] CHE compact heat exchanger
FTCHE fin-and-tube compact heat exchanger
Q heat transfer rate [w]
Xl tube position from inlet [m] CVGPF corrugated/vortex-generator plate-fin
Re Reynolds number ((q Um Dh)/l) OC fins one-corrugated fins
TC fins three-corrugated fins
ReDc Reynolds number based on Dc
ReDh Reynolds number based on Dh
S/ volumetric source term

conventional designs such as shell-and-tube exchangers. This ratio
(wetted face area per unit of volume) should be typically higher
than 600–700 m2/m3 or a hydraulic diameter characteristic
Dh 6 6 mm for the heat exchanger device to be treated as compact
[2,3].
A fin-and-tube compact heat exchanger (FTCHE) is a model of
compact heat exchanger (CHE) involving a block of alternating lay-
ers of fins that can have different geometry and forms. The aug-
mentations in the thermal–hydraulic performance and energy
efficiency of the FTCHEs have been of a great interest for numerous
researchers for a long time for fundamental technical designing
and various applied importance [4].
The traditional methods of reducing the airside thermal resis-
tance are by increasing the surface area of the heat exchanger, or
by reducing the thermal boundary layer thickness on the surface
of the heat exchanger. Increasing the surface area is effective but
it results in the increase in material cost and increase in mass of
the heat exchanger. One of the methods to reduce boundary layer
thickness is by the generation of passive vortices. In this technique,
an obstacle to generate a vortex oriented in the direction of the
flow alters the flow field. The resulting change in the flow due to
an obstacle modifies the local thermal boundary layer. The net
effect of this manipulation is an average increase in the heat trans-
fer for the affected area. The main challenge of using vortex gener-
ators as passive methods is the significant increase of pressure
drop and pumping power due to increase of pressure drag and
instability of flow over the tube bank. When the fluid flows over
the tube bank into the FTCHEs, there will be a rise in the pressure
drop over each of the tubes, because of separation points and the
rear vortices of the tubes where, the properties of the fluid are
unstable and change rapidly.
Tahseen et al. [5] conducted an overview of numerical, experi-
mental, and analytical works that are related to hydrodynamic
characteristics of the tube banks CHEs rely on external fluid veloc-
ity, tubes arrangement, tubes rows, tube spacing, fin spacing, shape
of tubes, etc. The outcomes of review revealed that few studies
show the effect of tube diameter in a circular shape compared with
elliptic tube shape. Meanwhile, the other shape of tubes for tube
banks with the optimum design requests more examination and
investigation due to the lesser air-side pressure drop and improved
air-side heat transfer coefficients. Stehlík et al. [6] described a pas-
sive technique to augment the heat transfer in longitudinal finned
tubes by intensifying the surface area of heat transfer and heat
transfer coefficient. It was shown that the passive technique with
geometry modifications can increase film heat transfer coefficient
on fin side for gaseous flow with improving the heat transfer coef-
ficient and decreasing the area requirements on the gas side.
Bhutta et al. [7] organized a review on the utilizations of com-
putational fluid dynamic approach in the analysis of heat exchang-
ers. The assessment revealed that numerical modeling developed
as a cost effectual alternative with providing speedy solution to
design of heat exchanger and optimization. This review displayed
that the numerical simulations were with good agreement with
the experimental examinations varying from 2% to 10%, however,
in some unexpected cases, it differs up to 36%. It was pointed out
that the reliability and dependability of numerical modeling out-
comes have become an essential part of all design procedures,
leading towards eliminating the need of prototyping. Jacobi et al.
[8] organized a review of boundary layer improvement through
influences of heat transfer, instability of fluid flow, streamwise
and spanwise vortices, and controlling of wake regions in the mul-
tifarious heat exchanger with the interrupted forms of passages,
 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592
wavy forms, and plane shapes found in current CHE designs. The
favorably interrupted surface has been used to improve the recir-
culation zone, separation points, attachment, and wakes with com-
plex shapes. Ahmed et al. [1] organized a review on the
characteristics of heat transfer and flow in finned tube heat
exchangers of the existing patterns. The comparison of finned
tubes heat exchangers revealed that those with slit, plain, and
wavy finned tubes have the highest values of area goodness factor
while the heat exchanger with annular fin showed the lowest.
Wang et al. [9] carried out an experimental investigation of
thermal and hydraulics characteristics in a typical wavy form of
fins in the FTCHEs consisting of 18 samples with various geometri-
cal factors, counting the tube rows, pitch of fin, and flow adjust-
ments in a wind tunnel. The results have revealed that the pitch
of fin has insignificant influence on the Colburn factor and the
influence of tube row on friction factors is insignificant against
Reynolds number in the range of 400–8000 based on tube diame-
ter. It was concluded that the friction factors were independent of
the number of tube rows for both staggered and inline arrange-
ments. The coefficients of heat transfer for wavy form of fins has
shown increased values from 55% to 70% compared with its plain
form of fin. However, the friction factor penalty is even greater,
varying from 66% to 140%. Wang et al. [10,11] conducted an exper-
iment to visualize fluid flow in the FTCHEs with expanded scales
compared to conventional forms in the water tunnel using dye
injection technique. In this study, the prototypes with inline and
staggered arrangements of tubes were considered with and with-
out the attendance of vortex generators with annular and delta
forms of winglets designed on the surface of fin with conventional
pattern. The results indicated that an incredible enhancement of
mixing process of fluid flow on the rear of tubes by considering
the vortex generators was observed. In addition, the pressure drops
of the FTCHEs with vortex generators were greater than the
FTCHEs with flat plate fin geometry.
A further comprehensive experimental investigation concerned
with vortex generation effects on the air side performance of the
FTCHEs with standard plain form of fins configurations was per-
formed by Pesteei et al. [12], Kwak et al. [13], and Sommers and
Jacobi [14]. In these experiments, various influences such as the
various winglet positions, number of transverse row of winglets,
and the effectiveness of the vortex generator with considering
frosting conditions on the airside performance were analyzed,
respectively. The results have shown that there is a beneficial
potential to the employment of winglets for the improvement of
the FTCHEs.
Over the past few years, there are numerous experimental stud-
ies of the FTCHEs with various compound fin patterns such as con-
ventional plain fin, wavy fin, crimped spiral fin, slit fin, and fin with
delta wing of longitudinal vortex generators [15–18], and the spe-
cial form of winglet with curved trapezoidal and trapezoidal wing-
let compared to conventional vortex generators [19]. The major
objective and motivation behind these studies were to study the
thermal-hydrodynamic characteristics of systems with improving
performance criteria. An assessment of these studies shown that
these analyses have focused only on small numbers of tube rows
and tube diameters, which are frequently employed in the evapo-
rators and condensers in the refrigeration engineering systems. As
a result, it is essential to study the hydrodynamic characteristics of
fluid flow in the FTCHEs with various tube diameters and different
forms of tube rows.
In the recent years, an additional comprehensive experimental
examination based on PIV methods was used to examine the fluid
flow characteristics in various models of the FTCHE. Particle Image
Velocimetery and Laser Doppler Anemometry measurements were
used in a closed loop airflow for the characterization of the flow in
a four-rows of conventional FTCHEs model by Tala et al. [20]. Yayla
575
[21] carried out a PIV investigation including immediate illustra-
tions of the unsteady flow for a specified fluid flow structures in
the inline and staggered tubes of the FTCHE models. The PIV and
infrared thermal-vision investigations of the fluid flow and heat
transfer characteristics of two different fin surfaces with slotted
patterns in the FTCHEs were carried out by Li et al. [22]. They
examined the fluid flow structure in the FTCHEs, considering some
parameters such as fin shapes, tube arrangements, and configura-
tions. The results indicated that there is a useful potential to the
employment of PIV methods for the analysis of fluid flow in the
FTCHEs.
Haolin et al. [23] reported a three dimensional numerical inves-
tigation of heat transfer performance and hydrodynamic character-
istics of a novel CHEs consists of semi-circle cross-sectioned tubes
that create narrow slots oriented in the streamwise direction with
Reynolds number ranging 700–30,000. The simulation results were
compared with the particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements
for the Reynolds number ranging from 1500 to 4000. The results
indicated that the heat transfer characteristics of the slotted tubes
were enhanced by further than 40% compared to the traditional
non-slotted form of tubes. Abdel-Rehim [24] investigated numeri-
cally the thermal and hydrodynamic characteristics of a staggered
circular tube bank with a wide range of the aspect ratio in the
model of the FTCHEs. The results revealed that the average thermal
heat transfer of tube banks in cross flow depends on Reynolds
number, aspect ratio, and Prandtl number. The proposed model
has displayed superior heat transfer rates for all cases of Reynolds
number.
Čarija et al. [25] carried out a numerical investigation of
thermal-hydrodynamic characteristics of airside FTCHEs with con-
ventional flat and louvered forms of fins in a range of Reynolds
number based on fin pitch between 70 and 350. The results
revealed that the heat transfer characteristics in the FTCHE with
louvered fins were significantly better than conventional case of
FTCHE. In addition, the pressure drop for louvered FTCHE indicated
a slightly higher values compared to standard FTCHE for all range
of Reynolds number. Wu et al. [26] conducted a numerical investi-
gation of the heat transfer enhancement and fluid flow character-
istics of the FTCHEs with complex fin patterns consisting of
longitudinal vortex generator and slit fins in a range of Reynolds
number from 304 to 2130. The results revealed that the overall
performance of composite fin was enhanced compared with stan-
dard plain fin and slit form of fin.
Ameel et al. [27] used a numerical approach to investigate the
effect of length in the FTCHEs with several of fin geometries. The
results indicated that in order to be able to fabricate the FTCHE,
the value of the number of tube rows, the longitudinal tube pitch
must be compatible with the heat exchanger length as described
by the performance evaluation criterion (PEC). Gong et al. [28] con-
ducted a three dimensional numerical simulation of fluid flow and
heat transfer characteristics in the FTCHEs with circular tubes and
curved form of the rectangular vortex generators, which was
punched on the fin surfaces. The results indicated that the average
Nusselt number, friction factor and secondary flow intensity are
larger than that of the reference conventional plain fin at different
Reynolds number, respectively. It was concluded that the vortex
generators can increase the intensity of secondary flow and reduce
the size of wake regions behind circular tubes.
Lotfi et al. [29] conducted a three dimensional numerical anal-
ysis of the fluid flow characteristics and heat transfer enhancement
of the elliptical tube in FTCHE with smooth wavy fin patterns con-
sisting of four new types of longitudinal vortex generator in a
range of Reynolds number based on the hydraulic diameter from
500 to 3000. The effects of the geometrical parameters involving
winglets attack angles, streamwise length, and spanwise width of
vortex generators were evaluated for improving the performance
576 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592
criteria of proposed models. The results illustrated that the new
types of vortex generators significantly improved the overall heat
transfer performance with considering modified position in respect
to the elliptical tube and geometrical properties of vortex
generators.
Lin et al. [30], Lin et al. [31], and Gong et al. [28] introduced dif-
ferent new fin patterns with curved delta-winglet vortex genera-
tors, interrupted half annular groove, and punching curve
rectangular vortex generators, respectively. A modification in sur-
face of fins purposed as an effective method to improve the
streamline pattern when fluid flows through the fin spacing in
the FTCHEs. In these studies, a conjugate heat transfer with numer-
ical simulations were employed to investigate the thermal-
hydrodynamic performance of the FTCHEs with the staggered
arrangement of circular tube bank. The results revealed that for
the lower Reynolds numbers, the interrupted annular groove fin
surface could not efficiently enhance heat transfer under identical
pumping power criteria, and the excellent performance of the
interrupted annular groove fin can be achieved at higher Reynolds
numbers. In addition, for the FTCHEs with curved delta-winglet
vortex generators the results revealed that the heat transfer was
effectively enhanced under either identical pumping power or
identical mass flow rate constrains. Khoshvaght-Aliabadi et al.
[32] carried out a new scheme of the plate-fin, namely,
corrugated/vortex-generator plate-fin (CVGPF). The outcome indi-
cated at the similar geometrical and operational conditions, the
CVGPF channel had the preeminent thermal and hydraulic perfor-
mances compare to vortex-generator plate-fin channel. A paramet-
ric study technique was used by Khoshvaght-Aliabadi et al. [33] to
evaluate the thermal–hydraulic performances of a plate-fin heat
exchanger consist in the vortex-generator. It was confirmed that
the wings height was the most effective parameter and the wings
attach angle comes in the second.
A series of numerical investigations based on finite volume
methods were used to evaluate the heat transfer and fluid flow
characteristics in the FTCHEs with various geometrical parameters
and configurations consisting of delta winglet types of vortex gen-
erators. Lei et al. [34] evaluated the thermal–hydraulic phenomena
in the FTCHEs with the various range of Reynolds numbers ranging
from 600 to 2600 in laminar regimes, the aspect ratio from 1 to 4,
and the attack angle between 10° and 50°. Wang et al. [35] con-
ducted a numerical modeling of thermal–hydraulic characteristics
in the FTCHEs with and without delta winglet types of vortex gen-
erators at various range of Reynolds numbers in laminar regime.
Pal et al. [36] conducted a numerical simulation of laminar
steady-state fluid flow and thermal characteristics, considering
three different positions of delta winglet with the common flow
up configuration in the Reynolds numbers under 800. Hwang
et al. [37] used turbulent numerical modeling to investigate the
performance characteristics of fluid flow in the FTCHEs with com-
mon flow up layout of the delta winglet vortex generators in the
Reynolds number under 6000. He et al. [38] investigated numeri-
cally the air side thermal-hydrodynamic characteristics of fluid
flow in the FTCHEs with three various forms of delta winglet
involving with continuous and discontinuous configurations of
vortex generators in the Reynolds numbers ranging between 600
and 2600. The influences of special parameters such as three differ-
ent attack angles and the positions of winglets were assessed in
this study.
Hu et al. [39] studied numerically the heat and fluid flow char-
acteristics in the FTCHEs with ten various configurations of geo-
metrical parameters such as fin spacing, delta winglet attack
angle, winglet height, fin surface with winglet, and continuous
plate fin in laminar regime of air flow. This study considered the
effects of various forms of FTCHEs consists of conventional design
with and without LVGs for two in-line and staggered tube
arrangements. The results revealed that the heat transfer charac-
teristics of the fin surfaces in the FTCHEs were influenced by sec-
ondary flow concentrations. For the same Reynolds number, the
lowest values of the j-Colburn factor was for the conventional form
of FTCHE with in-line arrangements. In addition, an increase of fric-
tion factor was associated with delta winglet and staggered
arrangement of tubes.
Wu and Tao [40] carried out a numerical simulation of laminar
fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics in the FTCHEs with dif-
ferent tube diameters and delta winglet forms of vortex generators
pounced on the fin surfaces. The findings indicated that consider-
ing smaller size of tube at the first rows compared to second rows
provided more improving heat transfer and reducing of pressure
loss in contrast with the conventional FTCHEs with two rows of
tubes with equal size. In addition, Mavridou and Bouris [41] con-
ducted a numerical simulation of laminar fluid flow and heat trans-
fer characteristics over in-line cross flow of tube banks with
different tube diameters and three various arrangements of tubes.
The geometrical configurations that proposed in this study signifi-
cantly improved thermal, hydraulic and fouling characteristics.
Saha et al. [42] performed numerical studies with the objective
of evaluating the special effects of the form of vortex generators
and their comparative arrangements on the fluid flow characteris-
tics in a plate-fin heat exchanger. The field synergy principle was
used to explain the mechanism of the local heat transfer augmen-
tation. The results were indicated that the rectangular winglet pair
performed better than the delta winglet pair vortex generators.
Previous studies of enhancement techniques in the FTCHEs
mostly focused to improve heat transfer performance with smooth
fin surface and the flow manipulators known as vortex generators.
When a fluid passes VGs, longitudinal vortices are generated due to
the friction and pressure difference on the leading and trailing
edges of the winglet VGs. The longitudinal vortex is invariably
three-dimensional as the flow spirals around the main flow direc-
tion, and the flow structure is complicated. It has been found, from
reviewing the literature that the effect of geometrical parameters
on heat transfer and pressure drop for various fin types and tube
geometries of the FTCHEs have been investigated during the recent
decades. However, the effective factors of in-lined corrugated pat-
terns on the heat transfer and pressure drop across in a heat
exchanger have not been analyzed numerically.
In this study, the corrugated fins and oval tubes are introduced
as high potential strategy to evaluate the functioning of specially
designed of fin and tube for moderate pressure loss and enhance-
ment of the thermo-hydraulic performance of the FTHEs. The cor-
rugated fins is considered to improve uniformly pressure
distribution over tube surfaces. Increment of the heat transfer rate
due to the enhancement of mixing processes of the flow in the rear
of tube and reduce the wake region. In addition, the oval tube
shapes is considered to moderate the pressure loss and decrease
the drag force as results of reducing pressure differential in the
flow direction and resulting of the separation point delay and for-
mation of the poor wake region.
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the investigation of
thermal-hydrodynamic performance of airflow in the FTCHEs with
innovative design of fin patterns and oval tube is new and it is not
available in literature so far. The design of geometric model, imple-
mentation and validation of the new pattern of fins, as one-
corrugated and three-corrugated fins especially devised for modi-
fication of property of the convective heat transfer and thermal
efficiency in the FTCHEs. The newly designs has changed the struc-
ture of fluid flow over tube banks in the FTCHEs. In addition, the
corrugated fin patterns and oval tube shapes of the FTCHEs are
anticipated to improve the thermal-hydrodynamic performance
of fluid flow with decreasing of pumping power and increasing
the heat transfer over a wide range of Reynolds number.
 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592
2. Model descriptions
2.1. Physical and computational model
Typical core region of corrugated fin-and-oval tube compact
heat exchangers with one and three-corrugated fin patterns is pre-
sented in Fig. 1. Two different designs of the FTCHEs introduced in
this research are shown in this figure, which consists in numerous
corrugated fins with parallel passages of airflow area between
them. Fig. 1(i)–(ii) shows the schematic representation of front
view of the corrugated fin shapes with two different patterns and
the corrugated profiles applying in this new FTCHEs. These forms
of fins influence on both sides of each fin to fluid flow behavior.
In the present study, two kinds of corrugated design of fins are
adopted, specifically one-corrugated and three-corrugated fin pat-
terns are introduced in this work. Corrugated patterns are like
wavy forms having a series of curves with radii 0.68 mm and
0.50 mm and included angles 45° for the up and down sides of fins
profile, respectively. The corrugated patterns is oriented in tube
arrangement along the flow direction. These forms of fins are intro-
duced to increase the acceleration of fluid into the curvature
regions of corrugated fin then to make the flow destabilized,
boundary layer modification and bulk fluid mixing. The destabi-
lized flow is generated by the corrugated fin and it reduces the
thickness of the thermal boundary layer near the fin surface and
then reduces the airside thermal resistance.
The top and front views of the computational domain of FTCHEs
involve the corrugated fins and oval tubes with various geometri-
cal parameters consist in one-corrugated patterns and three-
corrugated patterns are shown in Figs. 2 and 3, respectively.
The first design introduced with one-corrugated fins pattern
and four inline arrangement of oval shape of tubes is illustrated
in Fig. 2. The second design is shown in Fig. 3 which consists of
three-corrugated fins pattern with four inline oval tube banks.
Duo to the symmetric arrangement in the models of FTCHEs, one
third of the regions employed in Figs. 2 and 3 are selected as the
main computational domain. The main geometrical parameters
as base values for performing the CFD simulations of one-
corrugated and three-corrugated fin designs in the novel models
of FTCHEs are listed in Table 1.
The main detailed geometric parameters for performing the CFD
simulations are presented in Table 1. More details of overall geom-
etry of FTCHE could be found in the literatures [43–47] and the
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of corrugated-fin-and-oval tube compact heat exchangers: (a) one-corrugated fin patterns; (b) three-corrugated fin patterns.
577
physical properties of air and aluminum are listed in Table 2 by
the commercial CFD software package ANSYS Fluent developed
through ANSYS Inc. [48].
In Fig. 4 the computational field with three subdomains and the
perpendicular coordinate system are shown in the isometric view,
where X, Y, Z stood for the spanwise direction, fin pitch direction
and the streamwise direction respectively. The computational
domain consists of three subdomains with the names upstream
side extended region, main region and downstream side extended
region. The upside and downside boundaries of the computational
solid domains considered two neighbors corrugated fins, which
consists of the airflow channel with four inline oval holes in the
main domain. The position of oval tubes is indicated in Fig. 4 from
the entrance of flow and exterior sides of the fins. The upstream
boundary can be established at a distance of one tube diameter
(Dc) in front of the leading edge of the fin to provide uniformity of
the inlet velocity [49,50]. In this study, the real computational field
was stretched by Fw/2 (Fw/2 > Dc) with small modification com-
pared with Dc to maintain the inlet velocity with more consistency
and uniformity. The exit domain was stretched by Fl to ensure a
flow pattern to avoid recirculation flow and ensure for applying
the completely developed boundary conditions at the outlet
domain according to Ref. [51]. To save the space, the extended
domain is not presented in scale with the fin length in Fig. 4. In this
study, the joins between fin flange and tube is assumed in perfect
contact and thus the thermal resistance in the tube and flange is
neglected by employing isothermal tube walls of outside diameter
Dc. The thickness of the corrugated fin is the same as the base fin
thickness df according to [28,30,31,38].
2.2. Mathematical modeling and governing equations
Employing the basic laws of mechanics to a Newtonian fluid
yields the transport principal equations for a fluid. Due to difficulty
of the fluid flow over tube banks in the FTCHEs, the direct solution
of the transport governing equations for mass, momentum, energy
is not possible. Therefore, Table 3 shows the assumptions used in
numerical simulation according to some literature reviews
[28,52–55]. Furthermore, the range of Reynolds number was
selected based on the research done by [56–58]. The investigations
are performed for Reynolds numbers between 200 and 900 based
on the hydraulic diameter and the mean velocity at the minimum
flow cross-sectional.
578 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592

Fig. 2. Geometric characteristics of one-corrugated fin patterns: (a) top view of one-corrugated fin pattern; (b) front view of one-corrugated fin profile.

Fig. 3. Geometric characteristics of three-corrugated fin patterns: (a) top view of three-corrugated fin pattern; (b) front view of three-corrugated fin profile.

Generally, the small volume or element of the given fluid in the
motion may undergo two changes. First, the fluid element can
translate or rotate in the domain, and second, it can be distorted
and consequently the element shape change is generated by a sim-
ple stretching along one or more axes, or by an angular distortion.
The transport equations expressed in tensor form consists of con-
tinuity, momentum and energy equations in the computational
domains are presented in Table 4.
The general Eqs. (1)–(3) are employed in the CFD calculations to
compute thermal-hydrodynamic characteristics and it can be
 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592 579

@T 
Table 1
@x
¼ 0;
Comprehensive geometric parameters of FTCHE.
 For the surfaces on tube walls, Dirichlet B.C:
Parameter Symbol (unit) Value U x ¼ U y ¼ U z ¼ 0;
Major axes of oval tube Da (mm) 12.7 T¼T ¼ 350 K;
@P wall
Minor axes of oval tube Db (mm) 7.94
@n
¼ 0; n signifies the normal direction
Fin collar diameter Dc (mm) 10.459
3. For the surface of fins as coil and main region of model:
Transverse tube spacing Pt (mm) 25.4
Longitudinal tube spacing Pl (mm) 25.4  In the upside and bottom side of boundaries:
Fin pitch Fp (mm) 3.0 U x ¼ U y ¼ U z ¼ 0;
@P
Fin thickness df (mm) 0.1
@n
¼ 0;
Fin length Fl (mm) 101.6
Fin width Fw (mm) 25.4
Temperature is considered with periodic conditions
Tube position from inlet Xl (mm) 12.7  For the lateral boundaries of fluid region:
@U z 
Number of tube N 4 ¼ 0;
Dc = Dtube + 2df
@x 
@U y
@x
¼ 0; U x ¼ 0;
@T 
found in some selected references [28,53,55,59–62]. The conjugate @x
¼ 0
heat transfer approach was used to determine the thermal charac-  For the lateral side of boundaries at the fin surface region:
teristic in the fin surfaces. U x ¼ U y ¼ U z ¼ 0;
@T 
@x
¼0
2.3. Boundary conditions 4. In the outlet region, Neuman boundary condition (One-way):
@Ux 
¼ 0;
The fluid dynamic transport equations are in the form of elliptic
@z 
@U y
partial differential equations used in the computational domain @z
¼ 0;
@Uz 
that need to identify the boundary conditions at all surfaces. The ¼ 0;
complete details of boundary conditions were simulated in this @T@z
@z
¼ 0;
study to investigate the thermal and fluid dynamic characteristics @P
@x
¼0
are described as follows:

1. In the upstream side in the extended region (inlet domain): 2.4. Parameter definitions
 At the entrance area as inlet side of boundary, Dirichlet B.C:
U ¼ U in ¼ Const:; In a FTCHE, the performance parameter considerably depends on
U x ¼ U y ¼ 0; the geometry and fluid flow conditions. The flow condition can be
T ¼ T in ¼ 300 K characterized by Reynolds number, bulk temperature, heat transfer
 In the up and bottom side of boundaries:

 rate, and overall average heat transfer coefficient. The aim of heat
@U z
@y
¼ 0; exchanger design is to get a high heat flux combined with the least

 pressure drop. In the present study, the Colburn factor for perfor-
@U x
@y
¼ 0; U y ¼ 0;

 mance assessment, Nusselt number, and friction factor are used
@T to describe the thermal-hydrodynamic characteristics of FTCHEs.
@y
¼ 0;

 The assessment method yields to results to evaluate the thermal
@P
@y
¼0 and hydrodynamic performance of heat exchangers factors group.
 For the lateral of boundaries: Thus, these dimensionless parameters are defined as follows:


@U y
¼ 0; Reynolds number:
@x
@Uz 
¼ 0; qU m Dh
@x Re ¼ ð5Þ
U x ¼ 0;
@T 
l
@x
¼ 0;
j-Colburn factor:
2. In the downstream extended region (Outlet domains):
 At the up and down side boundaries: h 2

 j¼ Pr3 ð6Þ
@U z
@y
¼ 0; qU m C p


@U x
@y
¼ 0; Fanning friction factor:
U y ¼ 0;

 2 DP A c
@T
@y
¼ 0; f ¼ ð7Þ
qU 2m Ao
 For the lateral of boundaries:
@Uz 
¼ 0; Heat transfer performance factor [63,64]:

@x 
@U y
¼ 0;
@x J ¼ j  ReDh ð8Þ
U x ¼ 0;

Table 2
Properties of the fins and air flow.

Density Specific heat Thermal conductivity Dynamic viscosity

(kg m
3) (J kg
1 K
1) (W m
1 K
1) (kg m
1 s
1)
Air 1.23 1006.43 0.0242 0.00001789
Fin 3600 765 36 –
580 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592

Fig. 4. 3D schematic diagram of the computational domains; (a) FTCHE model with three-corrugated fin patterns; (b) FTCHE model with one-corrugated fin patterns.

Table 3 Thermal performance factor [51,67]:

The assumptions used in numerical modeling of fluid flow in the FTCHE. j
j
1. The incompressible flows in the airside passages are limited as laminar g ¼ rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ref

 ð11Þ
flow because of the small fin pitch and the low fluid velocity 3 f
2. The physical properties of the working fluid and the fin material are f ref
constant
3. The heat transfer is via sensible heat and no mass transfer is being taken In Eqs. (10) and (11), the dimensionless factors were used to assess
place the importance of the performance criteria through effective evalu-
4. The joins between fin flange and tube is assumed to be in a perfect
ation of thermal and dynamic performance of a FTCHE including
contact
5. Effects of heat dissipation and thermal radiation are negligible
both the j and the f factors. This section described the performance
6. Smooth surface conditions for the fin-and-tube criteria including dimensionless groups, equations for heat transfer
7. The flow and heat transfer are in steady state calculations, efficiency calculations, and equations for Fanning fric-
8. The viscous dissipation is negligible tion factor calculations. Following is a summary of some other
9. Buoyancy force is neglected
related parameters used in this work.
Pressure drop:
DP ¼ ðP inlet
Poutlet Þ ð12Þ
Table 4
Governing equations used for numerical simulation in the FTCHE. Logarithmic mean temperature difference [68,19]:

Continuity equation: ðT wall
T inlet Þ
ðT wall
T outlet Þ

DT m ¼ ð13Þ
@ðqui Þ
@xi ¼ 0:0 (1) ln½ðT wall
T inlet Þ=ðT wall
T outlet Þ
Momentum equation:

 Total heat transfer:
@ @u @p (2)
ðqui uj Þ ¼ @x@ i l @xij
@x
@xi j _ p ðT outlet
T inlet Þ
Q ¼ mC ð14Þ
Energy equation:

 Convective heat transfer coefficient:
@ @ k @uj (3)
@xi ðqui TÞ ¼ @xi C p @xi
Q
General transport equation:(for scalars): h¼ ð15Þ


@£

(4)
A o DT m
@ @
@xi ðqui £Þ ¼ @xi C£ @xi
S£
Nusselt number:
hDh
Nu ¼ ð16Þ
k
Pumping power factor [63,64]:

F ¼ f  ðReDh Þ3 ð9Þ 3. Methodology

Overall thermal–hydraulic performance [26,65,66]: 3.1. Numerical approach

j
JF ¼ p
3
ffiffiffi ð10Þ In this section, the numerical simulation based on CFD method-
f
ology was organized to investigate thermal-hydrodynamic
 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592
characteristics of airflow with new designs of fins and tubes in the
FTCHEs as introduced in Section 2.1. For the first step, the finite vol-
ume method is applied for discretization transport equations for
computing the thermal–hydraulic characteristics in the computa-
tional domain. The upwind and hybrid schemes were used to dis-
cretize the partial differential equations. The solution algorithm of
COUPLED scheme is used to solve the velocity field in all three
directions and the pressure characteristic. In this study, the perfor-
mance of solution process is enhanced by the usage of COUPLED
scheme because of: (1) it has faster solution times and its reliable;
(2) it eliminates the approximations associated compared to the
segregated solution approaches such as SIMPLE, SIMPLEC; (3) it
reduces errors related to the initial boundary conditions, nonlin-
earities in the physical models, and stretched and skewed meshes.
The pressure-based coupled solver differs from the segregated
algorithm in that the continuity and momentum equations are
solved in a fully coupled approach. A single matrix equations is
then solved in which the dependent variables are solution vector
containing the unknown velocities and pressures [69]. The condi-
tion in which the solution became converged was when the resid-
uals were less than 1  10
4 at continuity iterations. The solution
for energy equation was converged at the quantities less than
1  10
8. The flow field variables, on the above mentioned condi-
tions, reached to stable local values regarding any number of
iterations.
3.2. Grid generation and grid independency
Grid generation or meshing of the physical domain is the base
of many computational methods in which complicated partial dif-
ferential equations on fluids case studies are being solved. If more
orthogonal grids can be generated, the calculations will decrease in
number of equations and their complexity; and therefore, the solu-
tions will be more accurate and faster to be achieved. The first step
which governs the fluid flow, is the suitable number of grid gener-
ation for the considered physical domain. The three main factors
that make more favorable method of grid generation are the sim-
plicity of mesh, promptitude of resolution, converging and accu-
racy of obtained results in the calculation process.
ANSYS Workbench was used to solve the governing equations.
The meshes of computational domains were generated by using
ANSYS Meshing. The validation of the grid independency for the
numerical solution is carried out for different grid numbers. In
order to validate the solution independence of the grid, four differ-
ent numbers of grid points, including precisely 522456, 1025739,
2011831, and 2520450 elements were selected and evaluated at
ReDh ¼ 900 for the case of one-corrugated fin patterns. The average
Nusselt number and the Fanning friction factor of the 2011831 mil-
lion mesh elements varies from that of the 2520450 million mesh
elements by less than 0.14% and 1.90%, respectively, as shown in
Table 5. Consequently to keep a balanced compromise among com-
putational time and solution accuracy, the adopted third number
of mesh elements in the computational domain is about 2.0 mil-
lion. Similar validations are also conducted for other cases.
The details of grid generation for the model of FTCHE with one-
corrugated fins and oval tubes are shown in Fig. 5. More details of
meshing in the top and front views of grid distribution are shown
for all subdomains. The computational domains are divided to
Table 5
Results of grid independency at Re = 900.
Number of mesh elements
I: 522456 II: 1025739 III: 2011831
Nu 7.12035 6.88893 6.71861
f 0.02064 0.02094 0.02207
581
three subdomains consist of extended-entrance, main, and
extended-exit domains with very more structured grids with good
quality and maximum hexahedra element shapes.
More details of element configurations generated in the ANSYS
Meshing systems of the ANSYS Workbench platform are listed in
the Table 6 with statement of element shape. The grid generation
process is designed to conduct hexahedron meshes because of this
type of mesh can fill a given volume more efficiently than other
mesh shapes. Two important features of this type of grid genera-
tion are its results are more accurate and it decreases the compu-
tational time.
3.3. Verification and validation of numerical simulation
Validation of the numerical results, in this study, was mostly
performed on the heat transfer performance and frication factor
as two important parameters for evaluation of thermal–hydraulic
performance characteristics of the FTCHEs. Model validation is
organized according to the experimental conditions and test model
as presented in Ref. [70]. This proof describes the use of numerical
modeling as CFD approach to simulate the airflow and heat trans-
fer of FTCHEs. Comparisons of numerical and experimental out-
comes are presented in Figs. 6 and 7 at the same conditions. The
good agreement between the numerical outcomes and experimen-
tal data reveals the consistency of numerical simulation that intro-
duced in this study and thus the numerical model is reliable to
predict heat transfer characteristics and flow structure in compact
heat exchangers. The highest variance between the numerical out-
comes obtained by the current modeling and the experimental
data for the Colburn j factor and friction factor were about 12%
and 9%, respectively.
4. Results and discussion
The enhancement of heat transfer in a fin surface is critical to
improve the overall performance of heat exchangers. The corru-
gated fins and oval tubes are introduced to increase the heat trans-
fer coefficient and reduce the thermal resistance on the airside by
interrupting thermal boundary layer growth, thereby increasing
the convective heat transfer coefficients and reducing the airside
resistance. By using these fin shapes, fluid is accelerated to curva-
ture regions of corrugated fin then to make destabilized flow,
boundary layer modification and bulk fluid mixing. The corrugated
fins enhance the mixing of the hot and cold fluids and improve the
poor heat transfer in the wake region. The destabilizing flows are
generated by the corrugated fin and would reduce the thickness
of the thermal boundary layer near the fin surface and then reduce
the airside thermal resistance. In addition, an oval shaped tube pre-
sented in this study was selected to improve the heat transfer and
the pressure loss. Moreover, it delays the separation in comparison
with the circular cross section, which helps decrease the friction
factor and the flow resistance leading to a major decrease in the
pressure loss. Another main advantage in delaying the separation
and reattaching the flow after the separation is the decrease in
the pressure drop mainly due to friction drag in the case of using
the oval shaped tubes.
Diff. %
IV: 2520450 I vs. II II vs. III III vs. IV
6.70946
3.25
2.47
0.14
0.02165 1.47 5.36
1.90
582 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592

Fig. 5. Grid generation on the computational model of FTCHE with one-corrugated fins and oval tubes.

Table 6
Element shape in the computational domains.

Flat fins oval OC fins oval TC fins oval

tubes tubes tubes
Element shape Number of elements
Tetrahedra 0 0 0
Pyramids/wedges 704 3570 3060
Hexahedra 1762640 1368570 1601730
Polyhedra 0 0 0

4.1. Flow pattern and streamline

In this section, the flow pattern study is primarily presented

with the focusing on the flow behavior over the physical domains
and especially in the wake region behind the tubes corresponding
to Reynolds number of 200.
The wake regions in Fig. 8 show the effect of conventional form
of the FTCHE on the flow pattern between the fin surface and over
tubes. In comparison with Fig. 8, the decrease in wake region in the
rear of tube is clearly shown in Fig. 9. The difference between the
two figures reveals the significant effect of fin patterns and tube
geometry for the same structure of FTCHEs and fluid flow charac-
teristics. The advantage of using streamlined body like oval tube
indicates a very small wake area in the back of tube in comparison
Fig. 6. Comparison of numerical and experimental results of friction factor with
various Reynolds numbers.
with circular tubes. For a given Reynolds number, FTCHEs with
oval tubes always show a lower resistance than FTCHEs with circu-
lar tubes. The wake regions in this figure shows the effect of using
one-corrugated fins and oval tubes in the FTCHE design on the flow
pattern between the fin surface and oval tubes. The size of the
wake decreases, indicating that the boundary layer separation on
the bluff bodies occurs further along the surface than before.
 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592
Fig. 7. Comparison of numerical and experimental results of j-Colburn factor with
different Reynolds numbers.
Fig. 10 shows the effect of using three-corrugated fins and oval
tubes in the FTCHE design on the flow pattern between the fin sur-
face and oval tubes. In comparison with other geometries intro-
duced in this study, the change in flow structure behind the tube
and the significant decrease in the wake region in the rear of tube
is clearly presented in Fig. 10. The flow pattern in this design
meaningfully improved the mixing process of fluid flow between
upstream and downstream side of tubes with more mixing of cold
fluid in the wake regions. The results indicate that the corrugated
design of fin is very effective method to increase the mixing pro-
cess between upstream flow and the flow that stays in the wake
region behind of tubes. In addition, the three-corrugated fin is
more effective than one-corrrugated fin, because of more momen-
tum of fluid flow near the tube surfaces is appeared.
Fig. 11 shows the outlook of flow pattern from the isometric and
top views for three different configurations of the FTCHEs in unit
schema. The size of wake region and recirculation zone is shown
in this figure. The delay of separation are caused by the oval tubes
in comparison with the circular ones which helps decrease the fric-
tion factor and the flow resistance leading to a major decrease in
the pressure loss.
Due to the flat form of fins and circular tubes based on Fig. 11
(a) and (b), the wake region has been created with large area and
fluid particles would stay at the wake region behind of tubes.
Fig. 11(b) illustrated the top view of streamline patterns that
shown completely symmetrical wake regions over the back side
of circular tubes with flat fin configurations of FTCHE model.
Fig. 8. Flow pattern in the convectional FTCHE with circular tubes at Reynolds number 200.
583
According to Fig. 11(c) and (e) through the new form of fins the
flow fast-tracked into the down side stream at the back side of
tubes because of the corrugated form of fins designed on the fin
surfaces. Fig. 11(d) and (f) illustrated the top view of streamline
that shown irregular wake regions with decreasing the wake areas
over the back side of tubes. Fig. 12 shows a perfect front view of
flow pattern around the tubes in three various FTCHEs. The accel-
eration of air flow from left and right of corrugated fin surface over
tube surface caused the wake region to break in comparison to
conventional form of fins. Breaking of wake regoin in the back side
of tubes is the direct effect of using corrugated fin surfaces. In addi-
tion, Fig. 12 shows the wake region is dominated by vortical
motion at the back side of tubes in the FTCHEs with flat fins forms.
The flow structure is changed by the corrugated surfaces in the
wake regions. Three dimensional motion of flow between up and
down fin surfaces can augment mixing process of fluid flow in
the rear of tubes. Fig. 12(b) and (c) demonstrated the front view
of streamline patterns that shown completely asymmetrical wake
regions with decreasing the wake areas over the back side of tubes.
4.2. Velocity field
Figs. 13 and 14 display the velocity contour for the physical
domain in the surface plane 0.3 and 1.6 mm for three-corrugated
fins. The effects of fins and tubes show how the new designs
affected the local velocity contour in the flow field of FTCHE. The
corrugated fins can change the flow patterns over tube surfaces
and increased the acceleration of fluid into wake region. The flow
acceleration delays the separation from the tube, reduces the drag
across the tube and aids the fluid into the wake recirculation zone.
When the fluid flows through the corrugated patterns, causing the
bulk flow mixing, boundary layer modification, and flow destabi-
lization; heat transfer is enhanced due to these forms of fins. The
reduction of wake regions and improve mixing process are the
basic mechanism for enhanced convective heat transfer.
The set of streamlines with circular and spiral motion for the
physical domains as vortex core region is shown in Fig. 15. In fact,
a vortex core is a particular type of isosurface that displays a vor-
tex. The lack of mixing process in the wake regions is seen in the
conventional FTCHE. Improving the mixing process and acceler-
ated more fluid in the rear regions were validated by applying
the oval tubes and corrugated fins in the FTCHEs. Improving the
mixing process in this figure showed clearly the effect of new
584 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592

Fig. 9. Flow pattern in the FTCHE with one-corrugated fins and oval tubes at Reynolds number 200.

Fig. 10. Flow pattern in the FTCHE with three-corrugated fins and oval tubes at Reynolds number 200.

design of fins with three-corrugated forms on the flow patterns. In
addition, the outcome of this study shows that the more effective
vortex core regions increased by using three-corrugated fin in
the flow field.
4.3. Pressure field
The variation of pressure distribution along the flow direction is
displayed in Fig. 16. The difference between pressure contours in
two configurations of the FTCHEs is evidently shown the effects of
using the corrugated fins and oval tubes geometry on the dynamic
flow characteristic along the physical domains. Primarily, according
Fig. 16 higher values of pressure distributions are observed in the
entrance region and especially at the front of circular tubes in the
physical domains compared with other shapes consisting the oval
tubes and corrugated fins. In addition, the lower values of pressure
drop belong to the FTCHE with the oval tubes and flat fins. These
results presented the pressure characteristic in the surface area of
air flow at h = 1.6 mm. Similar structure of flow filed for Reynolds
number in the range of 200–900 is also obtained.
The oval tube is introduced as a streamlined body, whereas cir-
cular tube is considered as a bluff body and conventional form of
tube. For streamlined bodies, the frictional drag is the dominant
source of air resistance. For a bluff body, the dominant source of
drag is the pressure drag. For a given frontal area and velocity, a
streamlined body will always have a lower resistance than a bluff
body. Cylinders are considered bluff bodies because at large Rey-
nolds numbers the drag is dominated by the pressure losses in
the wake region. In this study, four tubes between fin surfaces
through an air fluid experience a drag force, which is usually
divided into two components: the frictional drag and the pressure
drag. The frictional drag comes from friction between the fluid
and the surfaces with flowing of air over them. The pressure drag
comes from the eddying motions that are set up in the fluid by
the passage of the body. This drag is associated with the formation
of a wake, which can be readily seen behind each tube of the FTCHE,
and it is usually less sensitive to Reynolds number than the
 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592 585

Fig. 11. 3D flow pattern in the FTCHEs with different fin configurations and oval tubes at Reynolds number 200.

frictional drag. The pressure drag is important for separated flows,
and it is related to the cross-sectional area of the body. Further-
more, the pressure inside the wake region remains low as the flow
separates and a net pressure force (pressure drag) is produced
between the stagnation point in the front of tube and back of tube.
For the oval shape, the boundary layer on the top and bottom
surface experience only mild pressure gradients and they remain
attached along almost the entire major axis length. The wake area
is very small and the viscous friction dominates the drag force
inside the boundary layers. However, for the round tube, the pres-
sure gradients over the surface increase in magnitude. In particular,
the adverse pressure gradient on the top and bottom rear portions
586 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592

Fig. 12. Side view of flow pattern in the FTCHEs with various form of fins and tubes at Reynolds number 200.

of the tube may become sufficiently strong to produce a separated
flow. This separation will increase the size of the wake and the pres-
sure losses in the wake due to eddy formation and therefore the
pressure drag increases. For the tube with round shape a larger frac-
tion of flow over surface may be separated that in this stage the
pressure drag is much greater than the viscous drag.
4.4. Temperature distribution
The temperature contours of fluid flow for two different
selected surfaces in the physical domains at h = 0.3 mm and
1.6 mm are shown in Fig. 17. The results show the temperature
contours at Reynolds number of 200. The effects of corrugated fin
and oval tubes is clearly shown on the temperature distribution
in cross flow between of the flat and three-corrugated fin surfaces.
The variation of temperature contours in these two FTCHEs can be
explained with improving vortex core region and decreasing of the
wake region involved with more fluid mixing process in the back of
the tubes according to Fig. 17.
4.5. Thermal–hydraulic performance
In this section, a comparative study of flow characteristics and
heat transfer for the FTCHEs with four various forms of fins and

Fig. 13. Velocity contour in the FTCHE with three-corrugated fins and oval tubes at Reynolds number 200 in the surface plane h = 1.6 mm.
 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592 587

Fig. 14. Velocity contour in the FTCHE with three-corrugated fins and oval tubes at Reynolds number 200 in the surface plane h = 0.3 mm.

Fig. 15. Vortex core region distribution in the physical domain of the FTCHE with various form of fins and tubes at Reynolds number 200.

tubes including flat fins, one-corrugated fins, three-corrugated fins, Reynolds number in the range of 200–900 on the thermal and
circular and oval tubes is performed. The one and three-corrugated hydrodynamic characteristics of airflow for four various forms of
fins and oval tubes are introduced as new design in this study to the FTCHE cases were examined to predict the performance and
improve the performance criteria in the FTCHEs. The effect of efficiency characteristics, respectively.
588 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592

Fig. 16. Pressure contour in the FTCHE with various form of fins and tubes at Reynolds number 200 in the surface plane h = 1.6 mm.

4.5.1. Hydrodynamic and heat transfer characteristics
The variation of the pressure drop and friction factor is shown
in Figs. 18 and 19, respectively. The range of Reynolds number used
is from 200 to 900. ‘‘Baseline case” referred in Fig. 18 with the red
line is the FTCHE with flat fins and circular tubes. The results have
shown similar trend with smaller values of pressure drop for one
and three-corrugated fins and oval tubes as new forms of the
FTCHEs in the physical domains compared to that of traditional
form of the FTCHE. In addition, the minimum value of the results

Fig. 17. Temperature contour in FTCHE with three-corrugated and flat fins at Reynolds number 200 in the surface planes h = 0.3 and 1.6 mm.
 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592 589

is related to plate fins and oval tubes form of FTCHE as shown in

Fig. 18.
The variation of Fanning friction factor is shown in Fig. 19. The
results have shown smaller values of friction factor in the physical
domain of the conventional form of the FTCHE compared to other
forms of FTCHEs. The friction factor indicates the capability to
determine a pressure drop character for a given flow rate and
geometry. In addition, it can be found that the pressure drop for
all four cases increases regularly with the increase of the Reynolds
number. However, with the Fanning friction factor, the opposite is
true. When the Reynolds number increases the variation in the
drag coefficient (based on cross-sectional area) decreases, and over
a large range in Reynolds number it is nearly constant.
The average of Nusselt number for various forms of FTCHEs is
shown in Fig. 20. The results show a good agreement with the
results displayed with the temperature contour discussed in Sec-
tion 4.4. It is observed a significant increase of the average Nusselt
number in the one and three-corrugated fins, compared to the con-
ventional FTCHE. It can also be noted that the Nusselt number for
all four cases increases gradually with the increase of the Reynolds Fig. 19. Variation of Fanning friction factor versus Reynolds number.
number.

4.5.2. Performance criteria

In this section, the performance and efficiency parameters are
introduced in Section 2.4 and are used to investigate and analyze
the new design and conventional forms of the FTCHEs. The first
parameter used in this section is shown in Fig. 21.
The j-Colburn factor is a non-dimension quantity, and shows a
relation between the convective heat transfer, fluid properties,
flow conditions and geometry. The outcome of simulation is pre-
sented in Fig. 21 as the variation of the j-Colburn factor as criteria
analogy between heat and momentum with different Reynolds
numbers. The numerical results reveal that the fins configurations
have a significant effect on the thermal and hydrodynamic charac-
teristic. The j-factor increases with increasing number of curvature
regions in corrugated fins. In addition, the tube shapes with oval
forms had a positive effect on the j-factor.
LaHaye et al. [64,71] proposed assessing the thermal hydraulic
performance of heat exchangers through plotting the heat transfer
performance factor J (Eq. (8)) as function of the pumping power
factor F (Eq. (9)). Variation of J factor versus the F factor is shown
in Fig. 22. The outcome of this work show that for the same
hydraulic diameter Dh, J is proportional to the heat transfer per unit
Fig. 20. Variation of Nusselt number versus Reynolds number.

of volume and F is proportional to the pumping power per unit of

Fig. 18. Pressure drop variation versus Reynolds number.
volume. The results show the effects of new design on the partici-
pate of convective heat transfer on the fluid flow compared to fric-
tion characteristic with special more values of the modified
volume goodness factor in the upper values of the Reynolds num-
ber belong to three-corrugated fins design. The results also show
that the new design of FTCHE with corrugated fins improved the
heat transfer, then for the same heat duty, the heat exchanger
can be made more compact by reducing the flow depth. This will
result in a reduction of the pressure drop, which then shifts the
curve higher. For the same pumping power per unit of volume,
the new design yields a higher heat transfer per unit of volume
than the baseline design of FTCHEs with circular tubes and flat fins.
This obviously shows the potential of using corrugated fins for the
augmentation in heat transfer with producing smaller size of
FTCHEs (and thus more economical in cost) for a given pumping
power and heat duty.
The JF factor [26] is an index in evaluating the overall perfor-
mance that describes better performance of heat transfer to the
pressure drop which is shown in Fig. 23. The results show the
590 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592
Fig. 21. Variation of j-Colburn factor versus Reynolds number.
Fig. 22. Variation of modified volume goodness factor versus pumping power
factor.
superior performance of three-corrugated fins compared with the
conventional design of FTCHEs. The variation of JF factor versus
Reynolds number for different case studies related to FTCHEs indi-
cated the decreasing of trend in JF factor with increasing of Rey-
nolds number for conventional form of the FTCHE is more than
other shapes. It suggests that compared with conventional design
of FTCHE with flat fins and circular tubes, FTCHEs with one-
corrugated and three-corrugated fins both have better overall ther-
mal–hydraulic performance, and FTCHE with three-corrugated fin
has a better enhanced heat transfer than that of FTCHE with one-
corrugated fin.
The two important factors such as j-Colburn and Fanning fric-
tion factors are the relevant parameters used to characterize the
heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop, respectively, of a
FTCHE. However, a straight evaluation on the source of j-factor
and f-factor, in calculating the performance of a FTCHE, is not valu-
able in choosing the best one, because if j-factor is large, f-factor
additionally becomes large. Fig. 24 shows the dimensionless
parameter introduced in Section 2.4 and derived from [67] for var-
ious Reynolds number according to fin shapes between the com-
Fig. 23. Variation of JF factor versus Reynolds number.
Fig. 24. Thermal performance factor (g) versus Reynolds number.
pared FTCHEs. This is created from the performance evaluation
criteria based on area goodness factor which has been suggested
to evaluate the thermal and dynamic performance of the FTCHEs.
This can be obtained using the two ratios between a new FTCHE
and a reference FTCHE with a clear physical explanation of the
way in selection of the better FTCHE. The results show the effects
of new design on the thermal enhanced factor with good agree-
ment for the two new fin designs introduced in this study.
5. Conclusions
This paper was presented three-dimensional CFD simulation
results of the thermo-hydraulic characteristics of the corrugated
fin-and-oval tube compact heat exchangers with a new types of
fin patterns such as one-corrugated and three-corrugated designs
considering curvature regions of corrugated patterns in the tube
directions. In the last few decades, literature records revealed that
using vortex generator as principal strategies have been used to
augment the heat transfer performance in this field. New design
of fins without vortex generators as central approach was intro-
duced in this paper. Some of the remarkable conclusions are as
follows:
 A. Gholami et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 573–592
1. Meaningful augmentation of heat transfer and thermal charac-
teristics were confirmed with one-corrugated and three-
corrugated fins as a new design of fin patterns. The corrugated
fins are introduced with one and three curve regions to improve
uniformly the pressure distribution and increased the convec-
tive heat transfer over tube surfaces.
2. The oval tubes introduced in this work directly affects the
thermal-hydrodynamic characteristics with significant
improvement of the thermal efficiency compared to conven-
tional form of the FTCHE with circular tubes as a basic system.
In addition, the oval tube shapes is considered to moderate the
pressure loss and decrease the drag force as a result of reducing
the pressure differential in the flow direction resulting of the
separation point delay and formation of the poor wake region.
3. The numerical results pointed out that the average Nusselt num-
ber for the FTCHE with corrugated fin can be augmented up to
20% over the baseline case and the corresponding pressure dif-
ference decreased up to 19%. Furthermore, the results revealed
that the average value of performance in one-corrugated and
three-corrugated fins and oval tube compact heat exchangers
is up to 5% and 15% over the baseline case, respectively. Com-
pared with the baseline case, the newly designed fin with oval
tube shows potential improvement of heat transfer performance
and moderate pressure loss in the FTCHE. The smaller dimen-
sions, lower weight, and an increase in performance criteria
are accomplished with the new design of FTCHE.
4. The thermal-hydrodynamic performance of fluid flow structures
and thermal characteristics for four different models of the
FTCHEs show that the corrugated fin patterns and oval tubes
of the FTCHEs are excellent heat transfer passive technique.
Further investigations are needed to optimize the corrugated fin
patterns with various number of corrugated patterns for different
heat transfer situations.
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