As the cost of fuel rises, designing efficient solar air heaters (SAH) becomes increasingly important. By artificially roughening the absorber plate, solar air heaters’ performance can be augmented. Turbulators in different forms like ribs, delta winglets, vortex generators, etc. have been introduced to create local wall turbulence or for vortex generation. In the present work, a numerical investigation on a solar air heater has been conducted to examine the effect of three distinct turbulators (namely D-shaped, reverse D- and U-shaped) on the SAH thermo-hydraulic performance. The simulation has been carried out using the computational fluid dynamics, an advanced and modern simulation technique for Reynolds numbers ranging from 4000 to 18000 (turbulent airflow). For the purpose of comparison, constant ratios of turbulator height/hydraulic diameter and pitch/turbulator height, of 0.021 and 14.28, respectively, were adopted for all SAH configurations. Furthermore, the fluid flow has also been analyzed using turbulence kinetic energy and velocity contours. It was observed that the U-shaped turbulator has the highest value of Nusselt number followed by D-shaped and reverse D-shaped turbulators. However, in terms of friction factor, the D-shaped configuration has the highest value followed by reverse D-shaped and U-shaped geometries. It can be concluded that among all SAH configurations considered, the U-shaped has outperformed in terms of thermohydraulic performance factor.

This research article aims to provide a detailed numerical study of the multifaceted impact of S-shaped and broken arc roughness on solar air heaters. Therefore, a strong comparison was made between the modified heaters and smooth heaters for Reynolds numbers ranging from 2 00022 000. Also, the impact of two parameters, i.e. pitch and gap was analyzed to optimize the performance of the heater. The gap varies from 0.3 mm to 0.9 mm in both types of ribs with a step size of 0.2 mm. Afterwards, the pitch distance between both types of roughness was varied from 15 mm to 25 mm in the step size of 5 mm. Notably, it has been observed that among all the considered configurations, the gap length of 0.9 mm and pitch length of 25 mm have shown significant improvements in heat transfer characteristics. The specific combination of the gap of 0.9 mm and pitch of 25 mm has demonstrated better heat transfer capabilities at the expense of an increased friction factor. Lastly, the thermal performance factor of the systems was analyzed and reported. It was reported that the pitch length of 25 mm and gap length of 0.9 mm have shown a maximum thermal performance factor value from 2.9 to 3.3, while the pitch length of 25 mm and gap length of 0.3 mm have depicted the lowest thermal performance factor value. In terms of the overall performance, i.e. the thermal performance factor, the combination with a gap of 0.9 mm and pitch of 25 mm has shown the best performance, while a gap of 0.3 mm and pitch of 25 mm has yielded the worst performance.

Thermal augmentation in flat tube of car radiator using different nanofluids has been performed more often, but use of artificial roughness has been seldom done. Artificial roughness in the form of dimple is used in the present research work. Present study shows the impact of dimple shaped roughness and nanofluid (Al2O3/pure water) on the performance of car radiator. The pitch of dimples is kept at 15 mm (constant) for all the studies performed. The Reynolds number of the flow is selected in the turbulent regime ranging from 9350 to 23 000 and the concentration of the nanofluid is taken in the range of 0.1–1%. It has been found that the heat transfer rate has improved significantly in dimpled radiator tube on the expense of pumping power. Furthermore, the heat transfer rate also increases with increase in nanoparticle concentration from 0.1% to 1.0%. The highest heat transfer enhancement of 79% is observed at Reynolds number 9350, while least enhancement of 18% is observed for Reynolds number of 23 000.