Heat Transfer Enhancement in Rectangular Channel with Compound Cooling Techniques

Various compound internal cooling techniques were investigated in this experiment to see which combinations can offer the greatest heat transfer. Combinations of rib turbulators as well as pin0fins were used in different configurations in order to analyze heat transfer and pressure loss characteristics to determine which configuration had the overall best performance. Two different flow configurations were considered, a uniform channel flow setup as well as a jet impingement setup.

There were a total of sixteen cases performed for the experiment, eight for the channel flow and eight for the jet impingement. The types of cases that were performed were: a smooth surface case, two cases of only copper rib turbulators (P/e ratios of 5 and 10), two cases of only copper pin0fins (P/e ratios of 5 and 10), and three cases of a combinations of copper rib turbulators and pin0fins (P/e ratios of 2.5, 5, and 10). All of the cases were performed at four different Reynolds numbers to explore the effect of Reynolds number on the heat transfer. In terms of the channel flow experiment, the results indicate that the all ribs case with a P/e ratio of 5 had the highest heat transfer coefficients but also produced the highest friction factor. If the total area is considered and not just the projected area, than the case of all pins P/e ratio of 10 is the best candidate due to its extensively low pressure drop and moderate heat transfer.

In terms of the jet impingement experiment, none of the cases significantly enhanced heat transfer and many of them had results lower than the smooth case. The case of all pins P/e ratio of 5 performed the best out of all the rough cases but the case of all pins P/e ratio of 10 perform the best when taking into account the total surface area. Cross0flow contributed to the jet impingement results, lowering the local Nusselt number due to the bending of the jet beams in the low x/d regions but started increasing the local Nusselt number at further x/d due to the cross flow heat transfer.