1. Thermal enhancement of baseboard heaters using novel fin-tube arrays: Experiment and simulation.
- Author
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Bagheri, N., Moosavi, A., and Shafii, M.B.
- Subjects
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HEATING , *TUBES , *COPPER tubes , *THERMAL comfort , *ELECTRIC heating systems , *WATER temperature , *DYNAMIC simulation - Abstract
Baseboard heaters are a type of building heating systems that are placed along the base of the interior wall, instead of the traditional skirting. Baseboard heaters meet all the requirements of modern buildings such as thermal comfort, well-architected appearance, space-saving, efficient energy consumption, and fast thermal response. In the present study, we investigate the enhancement of the thermal output of hydronic baseboard heaters. For this purpose, several novel fin-tube arrays such as convector fins and fin-clips are proposed and the thermal performance of each array is evaluated experimentally. In addition, two different types of materials for the tubes, namely, copper and aluminum are examined during the experiment. The computational fluid dynamic simulations are used to carefully analyze the mechanism of the heat transfer enhancement in the baseboard heaters. The results indicate that the novel fins may considerably increase the performance. For instance, for low and high water temperatures, the convector fins can increase the performance by up to 42% and 94%, respectively, compared to the conventional fins. A baseboard heater with a convector fin and a copper tube exhibits the highest performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2020
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