A characteristic correlation for heat transfer over serrated finned tubes

Conjugate heat transfer from serrated fins on the outside of the tubes of a sodium to air tubular heat exchanger of sodium cooled fast breeder reactors, has been investigated by combined experimental and computational approaches. For the latter approach, the RNG k-epsilon model, which is applicable for a wide range of Reynolds numbers, was used for turbulence closure. The numerical model employed was validated by conducting in-house heat transfer experiments on a single serrated finned tube. A detailed parametric study has been carried out to investigate the effect of serration depth, fin pitch, fin height and fin thickness. In addition to pure cross flow, the effect of angle of attack of the flow on the heat transfer also has been studied. A correlation for determining the Nusselt number over a serrated finned tube has been proposed taking into account the serration parameters. This is expected to be useful in the design of sodium to air heat exchangers of fast breeder reactors. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.