Measurements of heat transfer and pressure drop for an array of staggered plates aligned parallel to an air flow

The heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of an array of staggered plates, aligned parallel to the direction of a forced convection air flow, have been studied experimentally. During the course of the experiments, the plate thickness and Reynolds number were varied parametrically. Mass transfer measurements employing the naphthalene sublimation technique were made to obtain the heat transfer results via the heat-mass transfer analogy. For a given operating condition, the per-plate heat transfer coefficients were found to be the same for the second and all subsequent rows. The fully developed heat transfer coefficients increase with Reynolds number for all the plate thicknesses investigated, but in a different manner for the different thicknesses. In general, thicker plates give rise to higher heat transfer coefficients, especially at the larger Reynolds numbers. The measured friction factors also increase with plate thickness. For the thickest plates, the friction factor was found to be independent of the Reynolds number, signalling the dominance of inertial losses.