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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

Volume 129, February 2019, Pages 735-745

Numerical investigation on heat transfer and pressure drop of pin-fin array under the
influence of rib turbulators induced vortices
Wandong Bai a, Wei Chen a , Li Yang b, Minking K. Chyu b

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2018.10.022 Get rights and content

Highlights
• CFD simulations were conducted to investigate pin-fin arrays heat transfer.

• The non-uniform inflow conditions disturbed by upstream ribs were considered.

• Detailed analysis showed signification spatial variation of heat transfer in pin-fin

arrays.

• The ribs caused entrance effect came with benefiting pin-fin heat transfer
performance.

Abstract
The internal cooling systems usually consist of multiple types of structures such as ribs, pin-fins and impinging jets. The influence
from upstream features could cause a significant change in performance for individual cooling technologies. The present study
numerically investigated the entrance effect of rib induced vortices on pin-fin arrays’ heat transfer performance. Four different rib
configurations were employed in the upstream of pin-fin arrays. The flow field and heat transfer of each case were simulated by
using the commercial software ANSYS CFX with the SST k-ω turbulence model. The investigation revealed that the ribs induced
secondary flows significantly influenced the heat transfer distribution and flow field in pin-fin arrays, especially caused strong heat
transfer variation along the spanwise direction. The presence of ribs came with enhancing heat transfer and reducing the pressure
loss of pin-fin arrays. The 90° rib had the best overall performance among the simulated configurations, outperforming the baseline
by approximately 51%-77%. These results indicated great potential to improve pin-fin heat transfer by optimizing upstream features,
and could benefit future design for the industries.

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Keywords
Pin-fin arrays; Rib induced vortices; Entrance effect; Heat transfer performance

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1 of 2 22-12-2018, 16:05
Numerical investigation on heat transfer and pressure drop of pin-fin a... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0017931018327170

2 of 2 22-12-2018, 16:05