[tightaznbreaka]

Hi all,

I'm currently working on a school project to design a fin tube heat exchanger (hot oil in tubes, air over fins) using CFD. I'm not quite sure how I should begin modeling. I have already done hand calculations to determine the surface area that would be required based on problem specifications of oil inlet temperature and oil outlet temperature.

What I need to confirm in CFD:
-Air temperature coming out.
-Oil temperature coming out to make sure it meets the problem requirements.(More concerned about this one)

This is an image of a concept made in solidworks (I know these fins are way oversize, I was just trying to get a feel for how it would run in Fluent).


So here are the things that I have already tried:
-Tried importing the above CAD into Gambit to mesh. Meshing however returns fatal error every time. (I would have applied a boundary condition on the tubes equal to the air temp in this case but it never got that far).
-Tried building a rectangular prism around the above geometry and subtracted the heat exchanger leaving a negative of the heat exchanger inside the rectangular prism. This too failed when meshing. (The rectangular prism would have served as a wind tunnel of sorts but couldn't get it that far.)

Questions:
-Is there a way to do this problem in 2d? If so how do I ensure that the fins are taken into account?
-Does anyone know where I can read a heat exchanger tutorial or something of that nature. (I have already performed the tutorial by Ansys of a periodic flow, which I don't think this is because as the oil moves through the piping the heat flux is going to change because temperature difference changes)?

Please any help would be much appreciated.

Thank You