tract
In an industrial plant, air quality is normally improved before being fed into a building and a heat
exchanger is one of the usual devices employed to achieve such air improvement. Therefore, enhancement of
heat exchanger thermal performance as well as its operating cost is always required. A heat exchanger is a
mechanical device usually consists of a main duct for transferring working fluid while there are tabulators
embedded inside. The tabulators will create turbulent flow in the duct, which usually enhances convection heat
transfer. It can generate by obstructions in channel of the fluid flow. This technique is known as periodic flow
interruption.
This paper presents the design of tabulators by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The case
study of laminar periodic flow and heat transfer in a square duct with isothermal walls and with staggered Ushape
baffles is investigated numerically. The computation studies based on the finite volume method have been
conducted for fluid flow for Reynolds numbers ranging from 100 to 1,200. Effect of baffle high (BR = 0.1, 0.2 &
0.3) and pitch length ratio (PR = 1, 2 & 3) on heat transfer and flow characteristics in the duct are investigated.
The study shows the flow characteristics created by U-shape baffles help to increase the heat transfer rate over
the test duct.