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Thermo-hydraulic performance evaluation of a quarter-circular ribbed triangular solar air heater: A 3D CFD study

delete2026-05-07
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PRE
AI
Y
Yadaba Mahanand *
J
Jnana Ranjan Senapati
DOI:10.1016/j.icheatmasstransfer.2026.111430delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
In the present three dimensional computational analysis, an attempt is made using ANSYS FLUENT to analyze the heat transmission and friction characteristics of a triangular solar air heater duct with quarter-circular ribs on absorber plate. The influence of heat transfer parameters such as relative pitch (RP), relative height (RH) of the quarter-circular rib-turbulators and the flow velocity on thermo-hydraulic performance is studied. The relative pitch and height are varied from 6 to 13 and 0.03 to 0.06 respectively, and the Reynolds number (Re) is maintained within 4000 to 18,000. The simulation results reveal that RP, RH and Re greatly influence the heat transmission, pressure drop across duct and flow field near the ribbed regions. For quarter-circular ribs with RP = 9 and RH = 0.05, the heat transmission is found to be 70% more than that of duct without rib-turbulators at Re = 15,000. In contrary, maximum frictional penalty of 2.67 times the duct without rib-turbulators is found for the quarter-circular rib-turbulators with RP = 9 and RH = 0.06 at Re = 4000. In the range of analysis, RP = 9 and RH = 0.05 is found as the optimal geometrical configuration where a maximum thermal enhancement ratio of 1.43 is achieved at Re = 15,000. The correlations have been formed for Nusselt number and friction factor to fit all the computational values in terms of RP, RH and Re.
Keywords:
thermal enhancement
rib-turbulators
solar air heater
computational fluid dynamics
heat transfer

Journal

International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer cover
International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer
IF:
6.4
Papers:
1.0W
Citations:
2.5W

Organization

C
Centurion University of Technology and Management
Scholars:
123
Papers: 68
Citations: 669
N
National Institute of Technology
Scholars:
1.5K
Papers: 752
Citations: 2.1K
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