A study on heat transfer characteristics for staggered tube banks in cross-flow

Cross-flow over tube banks is commonly encountered in practice in heat transfer equipments. The local and average heat transfer characteristics for staggered tube banks are investigated in the present study. A naphthalene sublimation technique is employed to obtain the local heat transfer coefficients, and experiments are performed for various tube spacings, tube locations and Reynolds numbers. The variation of the local heat transfer coefficients is quite different from the first tube to the third tube, but they are similar afterwards. The average Nusselt number increases more than 30% and 65% on the second and third tubes, respectively, in comparison with that of the first tube. And the empirical correlations for average heat transfer coefficients are compared with the conventional heat transfer correlations.     

An experimental study on the performance of air/water direct contact air conditioning system

Direct contact air conditioning systems, in which heat and mass are transferred directly between air and water droplets, have many advantages over conventional indirect contact systems. The purpose of this research is to investigate the cooling and heating performances of direct contact air conditioning system for various inlet parameters such as air velocity, air temperature, water flow rate and water temperature. The experimental apparatus comprises a wind tunnel, water spray system, scrubber, demister, heater, refrigerator, flow and temperature controller, and data acquisition system. The inlet and outlet conditions of air and water are measured when the air contacts directly with water droplets as a counter flow in the spray section of the wind tunnel, and the heat and mass transfer rates between air and water are calculated. The droplet size of the water sprays is also measured using a Malvern Particle Analyzer. In the cooling conditions, the outlet air temperature and humidity ratio decrease as the water flow rate increases and as the water temperature, air velocity and temperature decrease. On the contrary, the outlet air temperature and humidity ratio increase in the heating conditions as the water flow rate and temperature increase and as the air velocity decreases.