Heat Transfer Enhancement Using Delta-Wing Streamwise Vortex Generators

GUSTAVO A. RÍOS RODRIGUEZ; GARELLI, L.; STORTI M.

Río de Janeiro

Congreso; PAMACM2021. II Ibero-Latin-American Congress on Computational Methods in Engineering (CILAMCE-2021). 3rd Pan American Congress on Computational Mechanics PANACM 2021; 2021

Brazilian Association of Computational Methods in Engineering (ABMEC)

In this work, a three-dimensional thermo-fluid dynamics simulation using the multiphysics code Code Saturne is carried out, in order to analyze the performance of delta-wing vortex generators for enhancing the heat exchangein panel type radiators. These radiators are widely used in electric power transformers. The study is focused on natural convection and buoyancy-driven flows, which are common working conditions for this type of heat exchanger.First, the performance of a single delta wing which is placed between parallel vertical plates is analyzed. The best combination of characteristic parameters (aspect ratio, angle of attack) to obtain the highest thermal enhancementfactor is established. It is found that separating the vortex generator from the surface of the panel has positive effects in this sense. Then, with the selected configuration, a set of delta-wing arrays is placed on the surface of the heat exchanger and the resulting thermo-fluid dynamics is analyzed. The total heat flux and local / global heat exchange coefficients are reported. Using these passive devices, the overall heat transfer improves by 12%.