Numerical investigation of flow distribution in tubular space of fin-and-tube heat exchanger

This paper presents the experimental and numerical investigation of flow distribution in the tubular space of cross-flow fin-and-tube heat exchanger. The tube bundle with two rows arranged in staggered formation is considered. A standard heat exchanged manifold, with inlet nozzle pipe located asymmetrically is considered. The outlet nozzle pipe is located in the middle of the outlet manifold. A developed experimental setup allows one to measure volumetric flow rate in heat exchanger tubes using the ultrasonic flowmeters. The measurement results are then compared with CFD simulation in ANSYS CFX code using the SSG Reynolds Stress turbulence model, and a good agreement is found for tube Re numbers varied from 1800 to 3100