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The purpose of this paper is to investigate thermohydraulic characteristics of turbulent flow of water (4,000 = Re = 10,000) in a rectangular channel equipped with perforated chevron plat-fin (PCPF) with different vortex generators (VGs) shapes.

First, three general shapes of VGs including rectangular, triangular and half circle, are compared to each other. Then, the various shapes of rectangular VGs, (horizontal, vertical and square) and triangular VGs, (forward, backward and symmetric) are evaluated. To comprehensively evaluate the thermohydraulic performance of the PCPF with various VG shapes, the relationship between the Colburn factor and the friction factor (j/f) is presented, then a performance index (η) is applied using these factors.

Results show that the enhanced models of the PCPF, which are equipped with VGs, have higher values of j/f ratio and η as compared with the reference model (R). Further, the half-circle VG with the lowest pressure drop values (about 2.4% and 4.9%, averagely as compared with the S and ST vortex generators), shows the highest thermohydraulic performance among the proposed shapes. The maximum of performance index of 1.14 is found for the HC vortex generator at Re = 4,000. It is also found that the square and forward triangular VGs, have the best thermohydraulic performance among the rectangular and triangular VGs respectively and the highest performance index of 1.13 and 1.11 are reported for these VGs.

The thermohydraulic performance of the PCPF with different vortex generators VGs shapes have been investigated.

The main purpose of this paper is the generation of the heat transfer and pressure drop correlations by considering three working fluids, namely air, water, and ethylene glycol, for the wavy plate-fin heat exchangers (PFHEs).

In order to present the general correlations, various models with different geometrical parameters should be tested. Because of the problems, such as difficult, long time, and costly fabrication of the wavy fins in experimental tests, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations can be a useful method for the generation of the heat transfer and pressure drop correlations with eliminating the experimental problems. Hence, the effective design parameters of the wavy plate-fin, including fin pitch, fin height, wave length, fin thickness, wave amplitude, and fin length, and also their levels were recognized from the literature. The Taguchi method was applied to formulate the CFD simulation work.

The simulation results were compared and validated with an available experimental data. The mean deviations of the Colburn factor, j, and Fanning friction factor, f, values between the simulation results and the experimental data were 3.74 and 9.07 percent, respectively. The presented air correlations and experimental data were in a good agreement, so that approximately 95 percent of the experimental data were correlated within ±12 percent. The j factor values varied for the different working fluids, while the f factor values did not sensibly change.

The presented correlations can be used to estimate the thermal-hydraulic characteristics and to design of the compact PFHE with the wavy channels.

This manuscript presents the new correlations for the compact PFHEs with the way channels by considering all the geometrical parameters and the working fluids with the different Prandtl numbers, 0.7, 7, and 150.