Design Optimization of Pin-Fin Sharp to Enhance Heat Transfer

This work presents a numerical procedure to optimize the elliptic-shaped pin fin arrays to enhance turbulent heat transfer. The response surface method is used as an optimization technique with Reynolds-averaged Navier Stokes analysis of flow and heat transfer. Shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model is used as a turbulence closure. Computational results for average heat transfer rate show a reasonable agreement with the experimental data. Four variables including major axis length, minor axis length, pitch and the pin fin length nondimensionalized by duct height are chosen as design variables. The objective function is defined as a linear combination of heat transfer and friction-loss related terms with weighting factor. D-optimal design is used to reduce the data points, and, with only 28 points, reliable response surface is obtained. Optimum shapes of the pin-fin arrays have been obtained in the range from 0.0 to 0.1 of weighting factor.