Numerical Investigation of Heat Transfer Rate Improvement in Heat Exchangers Utilizing Innovative Wavy Vortex Generators

Quick‐cooling heat exchangers are used for a wide range of industrial applications. This study is aimed at employing the wavy surfaces of the vortex generators to reduce pressure drops and enhance heat transfer performance. The turbulent conditions for mixture (water and air) flow with Re w = 3500–5000. The current numerical results are supported by experimental data from earlier literature. Subsequently, the impact of the working fluid flow rate on the parameters ( N u / N u o ), ( f / f o ) and thermohydraulic performance (THP) is investigated for both water flow and mixture flow (water and air) in a downward configuration at a 15° angle of attack in an oval tube bank heat exchanger. Also, this study investigated the performance of wavy VGs and oval and circular tubes, as well as downward and forward configurations, across different angles of attack (15°, 20° and 25°) in the mixture flow (water and air) by using Ansys Workbench 19.0 and SolidWorks 2018. The design of wavy VGs achieves optimal performance at an angle of attack ( α = 15 ° ) for circular tube banks within a mixture flow, characterised by both transition and turbulent zones.