Poster Paper
Proc. of Int. Conf. on Advances in Mechanical Engineering 2011
Comparative Study Of Thermal Stress Distributions In
Fins Operating At High Temperature For Different
Profiles And Materials
Prajesh Paul1, Ram C Sharma2, Rohit Bezewada3, Mohammad Wakeel4, SM Murigendrappa5
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka,
Surathkal-575 025, Karnataka, India
1
prajesh.nitk@gmail.com, 2ramsharma89@gmail.com, 4rohitbezewada@gmail.com, 4wakeel2008@gmail.com,
5
smmnitk@gmail.com
Abstract — Paper presents a comparative study of the
distribution of temperature and consequent induced thermal
stresses in circular fins of heat transfer equipment. The
numerical analysis of this coupled field problem has been
performed using the finite element method. The influence of
different geometrical profiles viz., rectangular triangular and
Trapezoidal, on the temperature and stress distribution have
been investigated. The results have been obtained for
Aluminium Nitride, Cupronickel and Inconel MA754
materials of heat transfer fins.
Index Terms—Finite element method, Circular fins, heat
transfer, thermal stress distributions.
I. INTRODUCTION
A large number of engineering issues require high
performance heat exchanging devises with progressively
smaller in size, less weight and low cost [1]. The majority of
very high temperature heat recovery components involve
gas-to-gas heat transfer, and circular fins are one of such
heat transfer components that are employed extensively to
increase the heat transfer rates. Traditional industrial
applications have included heat exchangers, control systems,
compressors and IC engines. Since the heat transfer
coefficients are very low in gas-to-gas heat exchangers
thereby, suitable enhanced fin surface is necessary to improve
the performance and low weight of heat exchangers. Aziz and
Fang [2] have studied analytically the performance of an
annular fin with uniform thickness dissipating heat by
convection to its surroundings using two sets of boundary
conditions.
The effects of temperature dependent heat exchanger
coefficient on the efficiency of annual fins of rectangular,
triangular, concave parabolic and convex parabolic profiles
have been investigated by Mokheimer [3]. Naphon [4]
investigated analytically, the heat transfer characteristics and
the efficiency of the annular fins under dry-surface, partially
wet-surface and fully wet-surface conditions. Acosta-Iborra
and Campo [5] suggested that by employing modified Bessel
function, for annular fins of uniform thickness, the
approximate analytic temperature profiles and heat transfer
rates of good quality are easily obtainable without resorting
to the exact analytic temperature distribution and heat transfer
rate. McDonald [6] emphasizes, in future the significant role
© 2011 AMAE
DOI: 03.MES.2011.1.11
of ceramic heat exchangers will play in high-temperature heat
recovery. However, not many research papers addressed
temperature distributions and thermal stresses in high-
temperature ceramic heat exchangers with annular fin [e.g. 7].
Silicon Carbide (SiC) have generally been preferred as high
temperature heat exchanger materials. Islamoglu [7] computed
numerically by employing the finite element analysis package,
the temperature and thermal stress distributions in high
temperature ceramic annular fins with the steady-state
assumptions for the SiC material.
Development of metal alloys, e.g. Aluminium nitride (AlN),
Cupronickel, Inconel MA754 [8], etc., are potential candidates
for high temperature heat exchanger applications. Inconel
MA754 is an oxide strengthened nickel-chromium superalloy.
Its yttrium oxide dispersion imparts exceptional high
temperature strength and creep resistance. AlN has excellent
thermal conductivity and has a lower thermal expansion
coefficient than SiC. Cupronickel is an alloy containing 75%
Copper, 25% Nickel and trace amounts of Manganese. It also
finds application as heat exchanger material because of its
comparable thermal conductivity and corrosion resistance.
Therefore, in this work the temperature distribution and
thermal stresses developed in Inconel MA754, Cupronickel
and AlN fins are being compared numerically using
commercially available finite element software. The results
are presented for various fin profiles.
II. ANALYSIS
The numerical analysis was been carried out for
computing the temperature and thermal stress distributions
in circular fins using commercially available finite element
software ANSYS with Workbench 12.0. The custom system
option for thermal-strain analysis was selected. The numerical
analysis was based on the following assumptions:
i) Steady-state heat flow,
ii) The materials are homogeneous and isotropic,
iii) There is no heat source,
iv) The convection heat transfer coefficient is the same all
over the surface,
v) The temperature of the surrounding fluid is uniform,
vi) The thermal conductivity of the material is constant.
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Poster Paper
Proc. of Int. Conf. on Advances in Mechanical Engineering 2011

TABLE I. MATERIAL PROPERTIES OF METAL ALLOYS [8]

for any given problem, the finite element solution converges

to certain number of nodes [7,10]. The number of nodes
considered in this analysis was in the range 2000-3000.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The distribution of temperature and stresses in the radial
direction along the mid plane of the fin were computed. A
coordinate path was defined along the mid plane of the fin (y-
plane) from the base of the fin to its tip and the results
extracted along this path. The radius ratio of the circular fin,
R/ro has been considered as the operating parameter for all
the fin geometries. This dimensionless geometrical parameter
which governs the problem was kept at R/ro=1.5. This value
Fig 1. Circular fins with various profiles. (i) Rectangular section,
(ii) triangular section and (iii) trapezoidal section.
of the operating parameter was found to have best heat
transfer characteristics for SiC material in a comparative study
Fig. 1 depicts the circular fins with cross sections of the of rectangular and triangular fins by Islamoglu [7]. Larger
three different geometries considered for the analysis. The values of R/ro means longer fins and consequently, less heat
circular fins being axis-symmetric, rotation of the cross- will be stored in the fin and more heat transferred to the
sectional plane by 360o gives the solid model of the circular surroundings.
heat exchange fin. Table 1 presents material properties of
three metal alloys.
The modelled fins were subjected to convective boundary
conditions on the inner and outer surface and the
displacement boundary condition on the ends. Since only a
small vertical section of the tube was considered for analysis,
the heat flux through the tube material can be safely ignored.
Thus the top and bottom surface of the horizontal section of
the tube has been kept as insulated. The fluid bulk
temperature inside the tube was kept fixed at 1200K and the
ambient temperature for the fin was kept at 300K.
The inner (fluid and the tube) and outer (fin surface)
convective heat transfer coefficient, h; are 1000 and 100 W/
m2 K, respectively. In order to provide resistance to bending,
each element of the tube had length (L) to radius (R) ratio
Fig 2. Plots of temperature distribution vs. radial distance.
greater than or equal to 10 [9]. The tube edges at the top and
bottom ends were constrained to have zero displacement in Fig. 2 shows temperature distributions in a continuous
the y-direction and free displacements in the x-direction and decrease in temperature values in the direction from the base
z-direction. The heat flux was kept at zero at both tube edges. of the fin to its tip. For the same geometrical profile, the fins
The meshing was performed by the ANSYS Workbench 12 of Aluminium nitride material have higher fin temperature
auto-meshing tool after taking into the account the material values compared to Cupronickel and Inconel MA754 fins,
type, the geometry of the model and the type of analysis owing to its higher thermal conductivity value. Better heat
being performed. Although, an increase in the number of transfer characteristics were observed in the trapezoidal fin
elements generally means more accurate results, however made of Aluminium nitride. The convective heat transfer
© 2011 AMAE 115
DOI: 03.MES.2011.1.11
Poster Paper
Proc. of Int. Conf. on Advances in Mechanical Engineering 2011
from the Aluminium nitride fin was better because of the higher
temperature difference between the fin and the surroundings.
Fig 3. Plots of radial thermal stress distribution along length of
fins.
Fig. 3 shows plots of the radial stresses along the mid
plane of the fin. The radial stresses were found to be pre-
dominantly compressive in nature. Starting from the base of
the fin, the stresses decrease to reach a maximum compres-
sive value and then increase again and attain close to zero
value near the fin tip. The maximum values of radial stresses
occur near the base of the fin. For trapezoidal and rectangu-
lar profiles of Cupronickel and Inconel MA754, the maximum
stresses occurred at the base of the fin. For all other geom-
etries and materials, the maximum compressive stress was
seen in the range of r/L between 0.3 and 0.5. Triangular fin
profile exhibited lower radial stress values and rectangular
profile exhibited maximum values.
Fig 4. Plots of tangential stress distribution vs. radial distance.
Fig. 4 shows the distribution of tangential stress along
the length of the fins. It was observed that the tangential
stresses are tensile in nature. For all the materials considered
© 2011 AMAE
DOI: 03.MES.2011.1.11
for the study tangential stress was minimum at the base of
the fin and attains a maximum value near the tip. The maximum
values were found to lie beyond r/L = 0.7 in trapezoidal and
triangular fins and beyond r/L = 0.5 in rectangular fins. For
the triangular profile of Cupronickel and Inconel MA754 the
maximum tangential stress was reached at the end of the fin.
The tangential stresses are lowest for trapezoidal profile
followed by rectangular and highest for triangular profile.
CONCLUSIONS
The temperature and radial stress fields of circular fins of
heat exchanger application have been studied for three types
of fin profiles and three materials. The temperature distribution
along the radial direction has been found to be higher in the
trapezoidal fin as compared to the triangular or rectangular
fin whereas, radial stress distribution exhibited lowest in
triangular fin for the same material type. Fins having
Aluminium nitride as material exhibited better heat transfer
characteristics.
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