3D Numerical Study of the Effect of Eccentricity on Heat

Transfer Characteristics Over Horizontal Cylinder fitted with

Annular Fins
Jnana Ranjan Senapati, Sukanta Kumar Dash, Subhranshu Roy May 06 2016, Mechanical
Engineering Department, IIT Kharagpur, India.

Name:

Ubaid Hassan

SID:

200 339 435

Instructor:

Dr. Amgad Salama

Subject:

Advanced Transport Phenomena (ENPC 845)

Executive Summary
This paper focused on the study of heat transfer by natural convection from an
annular horizontal cylinder with different eccentricity. The authors studied the numerical
procedures that predict the heat distribution, heat effect, heat transfer rate by changing
different parameters such as eccentricity ratio, fin-to-tube diameter ratio and different fin
spacing. In the research paper, heat transfer study of annular finned horizontal cylinder,
numerical simulation of full Navier- Stokes equation along with the energy equation have
been made for the entire laminar range of 5<Ras<108 using the single algebraic multi-grid
solver of FLUENT 15. It has been observed that with the increase in eccentricity of the fin,
the heat transfer decreases for a fixed fin diameter. The annular disc can be designed for the
purpose to increase the heat transfer rate significantly with marginal loss in the heat transfer
with respect to the concentric annular fins when there is a space restriction on one side of
the base cylinder.

Introduction
Heat transfer enhancement in engineering applications by using fins has a significant
value and importance because of its excellent efficiency, less cost of material at minimum
maintenance cost. Many researchers have also studied the effect heat transfer by changing
fin-to-tube diameter, eccentricity and also the fin spacing.
In this study, a horizontal cylinder of diameter (d) 25 mm with fins of uniform thickness (t)
1 mm having constant fin spacing (S) with an eccentricity ratio () is taken for the analysis

as shown in the fig 1. In this research paper, the authors changed the different parameters
to study the heat transfer effect of all the changed parameters such as, eccentricity to seven
ratios, () = 0, 2, 4, 6, -2, -4, -6 and four different fin-to-tube diameter = 2, 3, 4 and 5 with
ten different fin spacing (or number of fins) as Nfins = 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 42, 48, 54 and 60. The
material used is the aluminum due to its high thermal conductivity and major applications
in process industries. Some of the results such as temperatures contours and velocity vector
plots are non-dimensionalised. The study of the natural convection on horizontal cylinder
with fins of different eccentricity has to be modeled by a three-dimensional geometry as it is
clear from fig. 1. The surface of the cylinder is maintained at a constant temperature Tw =
373K and it is fixed for all cases of consideration. The ambient temperature is 298K.

Mathematical Modelling
The governing differential equations for steady, laminar, constant property, three
dimensional flow with incompressible ideal gas assumption can be written as:
Continuity equation:

Boundary Condition:
At the cylinder surface and fin base, no-slip conditions

constant temperature condition:

T=Tw
The pressure P=P atm
The energy for the conduction within the fins:

For the above conduction equation, two boundary conditions will be needed, one condition
is known at the fin base to be at constant temperature Tw while the other condition is to be
bridged by the following equations

The surrounding fluid is assumed to be incompressible ideal gas.

From the Newtons Law of Cooling, the heat transfer can be calculated as

Where, the average heat transfer coefficient (h) is based on the total surface area A which
includes the fin area Afin and the bare tube area Ab and total surface area is given by the
following equation:

From the above equation, the heat transfer coefficient can be calculated as

Numerical Procedure
The governing equations from 1 to 5 along with conduction equation were integrated
over a control volume and the discretized using the finite volume technique to obtain the set
of the algebraic equations and then these algebraic equations were solved by imposing the
boundary equations and solved by the simulation software Ansys FLUENT 15. The number
of computational cells were too large as 9,51, 760. The geometry is shown as following

Results and Analysis

Effect of fin-to-tube diameter ratio:
As we can see from figure that heat transfer increases considerably as D/d increases,
this is due the increase in heat transfer surface area. Therefore, if the fins are set to be large
then more surface area will be available for heat transfer.

Effect of number of fins or S/d:

It has been observed that the heat transfer increases with the increase in number of
fins or conversely if we decrease the fin spacing. This is due to more surface area obtained
by increasing number of fins within the cylinder. From the figure, it can also be noted that
the heat transfer increases to the certain number of fins and adding more number of fins
causes the air movement obstruction within the fins space and thus decrease the heat
transfer. This is effect is mentioned in the red square in the figure.
Effect of positive eccentricity:
In this observation, the fins are moved upward with respect to base cylinder. The flow
is directed upwards due to buoyancy effect. As eccentricity increases, hotter region goes to
bottom side causes less heat loss. It has been observed that the maximum heat transfer taken
place at zero eccentricity because larger area is covered when eccentricity is zero.

Effect of negative eccentricity:

By changing the eccentricity negative, fins are pushed down with respect to base
cylinder. The nearest fin area is hotter than farthest area of the fin which causes heat transfer
due to hot cylinder. The larger cooler area is at the position when eccentricity is -0.6. in this

case also, the maximum heat transfer is observed when eccentricity is set to zero as shown
in the following figure.

Conclusion
This excellent research paper completely defines the natural convection heat transfer
rates, effects of the cylinder fitted with annular fins. The heat transfer increases marginally
by increasing fin diameter because it also increases the heat transfer surface area. the heat
transfer can be enhanced by increasing number of fins. The more fins are present more heat
transfer will occur but this number also limits to a certain number, after which it causes
negative effect on the heat transfer due to air movement obstruction. The effects of
eccentricity on heat transfer rate is not marginal and very less impact is observed when
eccentricity was changed. The maximum heat transfer when fins are fitted in the middle of
the tube i.e. at zero eccentricity. If the available space is limited in real time problem, the
eccentricity can be compromised with less marginal loss in heat transfer.