Numerical simulation of heat transfer enhancement from tubes surface to airflow using concave delta winglet vortex generators

Improvement of the convection heat transfer coefficient of the airflow has become a concern nowadays to increase the rate of heat transfer. Therefore, the present study is focused on evaluating the improvement of heat transfer numerically from several heated tubes to the airflow in the channel using vortex generators. Airflow into the channel is varied in the range of Reynolds number of 2100–11,200. The vortex generators used in this study are delta winglet pairs and concave delta winglet pairs with in-line or staggered configurations for one to three pairs of vortex generators. The results of the study showed that the installation of three pairs of concave delta winglet vortex generators with a staggered arrangement resulted in the best convection heat transfer improvements with the highest increase in convection heat transfer coefficients up to 53.58% than those from the baseline (without vortex generators). However, the increase in the convection heat transfer coefficient is accompanied by an increase in pressure drop of up to 69.69% against the baseline. •This study focuses on increasing heat transfer using concave delta winglet vortex generators (CDW VGs) which are rarely used in previous studies.•Two configurations of VGs were applied to investigate the impact on heat transfer in this work.•The local synergy angle in the case of three pairs of staggered CDWPs is 4.72% lower than that of the three rows of staggered DWPs at position x/L = 0.78 at Re = 2100.•This study found that the pressure drop on the installation of VGs with the staggered configuration is higher than that of the in-line configuration.•The highest TEFs (TEF = 1.3 and 1.27) for the case of CDWPs with a staggered configuration at Re = 2100.