INVESTIGATION OF INTERCOOLER FINS OF A TWO STAGE RECIPROCATING AIR COMPRESSOR

This study primarily aims to investigate and enhance the heat transfer rate through intercooler fins of a Two Stage Reciprocating Air Compressor by modifying the fin configuration. In this paper, an identical model of the existing intercooler with annular fin configuration is modeled in NX 12.0 and later analyzed in Ansys by implementing a steady state thermal analysis. The fluid domain of the intercooler is subjected to a spatial temperature variation because of the flow of air along its length, with its inlet and outlet temperatures being 115 °C and 94 °C, for the air delivery pressures 1 bar, 1.7 bar, and 6 bar at the inlet of the LP (Low-Pressure) cylinder, the outlet of the LP cylinder and outlet of the HP (High-Pressure) cylinder, respectively. A mathematical model is adopted to analyze the annular fins of the existing intercooler system and the same results are used to validate with the results of steady state thermal analysis to evaluate its temperature and heat flux distributions. The validation results revealed that the percentage of temperature depreciation between theoretical and analytical values was in the range of 0.00966 to 0.01949, which is considered quite little in practice. It has been also observed that the rectangular fin configuration of the intercooler yields a 37% higher heat flux than the annular fin configuration because of its larger surface area. In addition to this, different materials of Aluminum alloys and Copper alloys are assigned to the fins of intercooler, allowing for further optimization of various fin configurations. © 2022, Politechnica University of Bucharest. All rights reserved.