Abstract
The present work represents a two-dimensional numerical investigation of forced laminar flow heat transfer over a 3-rows oval-tube bank in staggered arrangement with rectangular longitudinal vortex generators (LVGs) placed behind each tube. The effects of Reynolds number (from 250 to 1500), the positions (3 in x-axis and 2 in y-axis) and angles of attack (30o and 45o) of rectangular VGs are examined. The study focuses on the Influence of the different parameters of VGs on heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics of three rows oval-tube banks. The characteristics of average Nu number and skin friction coefficient are studied numerically by the aid of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) commercial code of FLUENT 6.3. The results showed increasing in the heat transfer and skin friction coefficient with the increasing of Re number and decreasing the relative distance of positions of LVGs. It has been observed that the overall Nuav number of three oval-tubes increases by 10–20.4% and by 10.4–27.7% with angles of 30o and 45o respectively, with increasing in the overall average of skin friction coefficient of three oval-tubes reached to 53% and 72% with two angles used respectively, in comparison with the case without VGs.