Evaluation of Heat Transfer and Friction Factor on Wavy Fin Automotive Radiator

Forced convection heat transfer plays a vital role in many of the automobile applications. One such application is in a radiator of an automobile engine. The radiator is fixed in front of the automobile to cool the engine cylinder. The fluids used are water in early days but now they are being replaced by ethylene glycol combined with water. Now attempts are being made to use nano fluids with water in place of ethylene glycol-water as a coolant. In this paper, an automotive radiator with coolant circulating in vertical tubes are taken and the air is taken as a medium through wavy arch perpendicular to the coolant flow. This takes away the heat absorbed by this coolant from engine cylinders. The heat absorption is considered by varying velocities of automobile from 30 to 70 km/hr., keeping coolant mass flow rate constant. Input parameters such as mass flow rates of air from 4.3 kg/s to 8 kg/s, inlet temperatures of air as 〖30〗^οC, inlet fluid temperature as 〖90〗^οC maintaining fluid flow rate of 1.3 kg/s are taken and output parameters such as friction factor of air, heat transfer coefficient of air and fluid, overall heat transfer coefficient are determined. Furthermore, the enhancement of heat transfer coefficient using nano fluid is determined for different volume fractions varying from 0.5% to 2.5% with base fluid (ethylene glycol-water).