A review on heat enhancement in thermal energy conversion and management using Field Synergy Principle

•Processes of Field Synergy Principle proposal and development are listed.•Heat transfer enhancements of tubes and microchannels are discussed.•Optimization applications in thermal engineering are investigated.•Combined with other theories to strengthen heat transfer is considered. How to improve the efficiency of heat transport, conversion and management has been the research focus of thermal energy application and related disciplines. Since the Field Synergy Principle theory was put forward, it has been further studied and developed in a wider scope which is an effective research method for enhancing convective heat transfer and other heat transfer processes. This paper investigated the optimization applications in thermal transfer such as heat exchangers, fuel cell, porous medium, solar energy receiver vortex generators and diesel particulate filter, which can improve the heat transfer performance significantly. The field synergy direct application can improve the heat transfer capacity of the finned heat exchanger remarkably with a 7% increase of heat transfer capability and about 14.4% less aluminum for the fin. The heat transfers efficient of the wave fin with elliptic improved 30% with the larger averaged intersection angle compared to wavy fin after field synergy optimized. Better use effects have emphasized the utilization of the synergy approaches to enhance the heat transfer combined with other theories, the total time rates of entropy generation are 7.3 × 10−2 W·K−1 and that is 8.2 × 10−2 W·K−1 after field synergy and minimum entropy generation principle majorization with the same viscous dissipation of 2.4 × 10−8 W. The research results explore extensions of the field synergy theory highly desirable attributes to more diverse and broader applications, which provide a way of thinking and research method for the further thermal energy conversion and management development as far as possible.