Study on properties of heat transfer and flow resistance in cooling flat tube of intercooler

YANG Ying， DENG Wei， LI Jun， LAN Ke
（School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation， Northeastern University， Shenyang 110819， China）

Abstract： In order to solve the problems of optimal heat transfer performance in cooling flat tube of the air-air car intercooler，the FLUENT software was used，then the corresponding mathematical models on the coupled conduction-convective heat transfer for cooling flat tubes were proposed，the CFD method was employed to solve numerically heat transfer problem. Computed Nusselt was compared with Gnielinski correlations while friction coefficients f was compared with Webb correlation， Filonenko correlation，and Blasius correlation respectively，the results were proved a very good correlation. Then the accuracy of the numerical simulation method was verified. Also the heat transfer factor and friction factor of four cooling flat tubes were analyzed，which evaluation methodology of comprehensive properties was proposed. The study results indicate that the multi-channel rectangle flat tube has the best heat transfer performance while the multi-channel triangle flat tube takes the second place. Moreover，the results provide an important theoretical basis for the structural design or matching of the air-air intercooler.
Key words： car cooler； cooling flat tubes；computational fluid dynamics（CFD）； heat transfer factor； friction factor； flow resistance performance