Conduction IV

STEADY HEAT CONDUCTION

Heat and Mass Transfer: Fundamentals & Applications

Fourth Edition in SI Units
Yunus A. Cengel, Afshin J. Ghajar
McGraw-Hill, 2011
 Objectives
Understand the concept of thermal resistance and its
limitations, and develop thermal resistance networks for
practical heat conduction problems.
Solve steady conduction problems that involve multilayer
rectangular, cylindrical, or spherical geometries.
Develop an intuitive understanding of thermal contact
resistance, and circumstances under which it may be
significant.
Identify applications in which insulation may actually
increase heat transfer.
Analyze finned surfaces, and assess how efficiently and
effectively fins enhance heat transfer.
Solve multidimensional practical heat conduction problems
using conduction shape factors.
2
HEAT TRANSFER FROM FINNED SURFACES
Newtons law of cooling: The rate of heat transfer
from a surface to the surrounding medium

When Ts and T are fixed, there are two

ways to increase the rate of heat transfer:
Increase the convection heat transfer
coefficient h. This may require the
installation of a pump or fan, or replacing
the existing one with a larger one, but this
approach may or may not be practical.
Besides, it may not be adequate.
Increase the surface area As by attaching
to the surface extended surfaces called
fins made of highly conductive materials
such as aluminum.

3
 The thin plate fins of a car
radiator greatly increase the
rate of heat transfer to the air.

4
Fin Equation

Differential
Volume element of a fin at location x equation
having a length of x, cross-sectional Temperature
area of Ac, and perimeter of p. excess 5
The general solution of the
differential equation

Boundary condition at fin base

1 Infinitely Long Fin

(Tfin tip = T)
Boundary condition at fin tip Boundary conditions at the fin
base and the fin tip.

The variation of temperature along the fin

The steady rate of heat transfer from the entire fin

6
 Under steady conditions, heat
transfer from the exposed surfaces
of the fin is equal to heat conduction
to the fin at the base.
The rate of heat transfer from the fin could also
be determined by considering heat transfer from
a differential volume element of the fin and
integrating it over the entire surface of the fin:

A long circular fin of uniform

cross section and the variation
of temperature along it. 7
2 Negligible Heat Loss from the Fin Tip
(Adiabatic fin tip, Qfin tip = 0)
Fins are not likely to be so long that their temperature approaches the
surrounding temperature at the tip. A more realistic assumption is for
heat transfer from the fin tip to be negligible since the surface area of
the fin tip is usually a negligible fraction of the total fin area.

Boundary condition at fin tip

The variation of temperature along the fin

Heat transfer from the entire fin

8
3 Specified Temperature (Tfin,tip = TL)
In this case the temperature at the end of the fin (the fin tip) is
fixed at a specified temperature TL.
This case could be considered as a generalization of the case of
Infinitely Long Fin where the fin tip temperature was fixed at T.

9
4 Convection from Fin Tip
The fin tips, in practice, are exposed to the surroundings, and thus the proper
boundary condition for the fin tip is convection that may also include the effects
of radiation. Consider the case of convection only at the tip. The condition
at the fin tip can be obtained from an energy balance at the fin tip.

10
A practical way of accounting for the
heat loss from the fin tip is to replace
the fin length L in the relation for the
insulated tip case by a corrected
length defined as

t is the thickness of the rectangular fins.

D is the diameter of the cylindrical fins.
Corrected fin length Lc is defined such
that heat transfer from a fin of length Lc
with insulated tip is equal to heat transfer
from the actual fin of length L with
convection at the fin tip. 11
 Example - An interesting problem
Which material would you use for a teaspoon,
silver or stainless steel?

Try the following problem:

A cup holds coffee at 800 C. A spoon, 150 mm long, is half-immersed
in the coffee. The other half of the spoon is exposed to air at 300 C.
The cross-sectional area and periphery of the spoon are 7 mm2 and
9.5 mm respectively and may be taken to be constant. The heat
transfer coefficients on the coffee side and air side are 500 W/m2 K
and 15 W/m2 K respectively.
You have two choices of spoon material: Silver or stainless steel, AISI
304. Show either by calculation or by reasoning, that the stainless
steel spoon is better because
it is cooler to hold
it causes less heat loss
plot the temperature in the two spoons
12
 This problem is that of two fins joined at
their bases. The first fin has its tip in coffee
and the second fin has its tip in air. Each
fin is 75 mm long.
Both tips are convecting. However, the
qualitative answer as to which spoon
material is better can be got by
considering the temperature profiles in
silver spoon and SS spoon.
Thermal conductivity of silver at 300 K is
427.5 W/m K, while that of SS is 14.6 W/m
K, nearly 30 times smaller.
13
 Because of the smaller thermal conductivity of
stainless steel, the temperature drop along the
SS spoon is greater as shown in the plot of
temperature profile and the SS spoons tip
reaches a lower temperature. The temperature
gradient in the SS spoon is steeper, but it loses
less heat because of its lower thermal
conductivity.
The same conclusion can be got quantitatively
by considering insulated tip for both spoons. The
complete solution is shown below.

14
For each fin we have four unknowns : Ttip in
coffee, Tbase, Ttip in air and fin heat flow.

These four unknowns require 4 equations. Two

of these are got from the solutions:
tip /b = 1/cosh mL
qfin = b tanh mL (hPkA)

The other two are:

Tb from the coffee side = Tb from the air side
qfin from the coffee side = qfin from the air side
The table below gives calculated values for the
various quantities.
15
 Silver spoon S.S. spoon

Thermal Conductivity 427.5 14.6

at 300 K, W/m K
Coffee Air side Coffee side Air side
side
Heat transfer coefficient, 500 15 500 15
W/m2 K
m 39.8 6.9 215.6 37.3

mL 2.99 0.5175 16.17 2.8

tanh mL 0.995 0.476 1 0.993

(cosh mL)-1 0.1 0.88 1.9 E -7 0.121

16
 Spoon in Coffee Spoon in Air

Tip in
coffee

Spoon, 150 mm long

T coffee Tbase with

Silver

SS spoon

Silver spoon
Ttip in air
Tbase with AISI
304

T air

17
 Consider the silver spoon.
Step 1: as , k and A are the same for both (coffee
and air) sides, we get
(80 Tb) x 0.995 x 500 = (Tb 30) x 0.476 x 15
Tb = 76.17

By a similar calculation for the SS spoon, we get

(80 Tb) x 1 x 500 = (Tb 30) x 0.993 x 15
Tb = 72.67
The tip temperature of silver spoon in coffee:
tip /b = (Ttip 80)/(76.17 80) = 1/cosh 2.99
Ttip = 79.62

18
The other temperatures can be calculated likewise
 Silver spoon Stainless steel
spoon

Ttip in coffee, 0 C 79.62 80

Tbase , 0 C 76.17 72.67

Ttip in air, 0 C 70.63 35.16

qfin , watts 0.45 0.16

19
 Example 4
In a long cylindrical fin of 10 mm diameter, the
temperature is measured at three points along
its length, each 10 cm apart. The measured
temperatures are 80, 70 and 620 C respectively.
The ambient is at 300 C and the heat transfer
coefficient to the ambient is 20 W/m2 K.
Calculate the thermal conductivity of the fin
material.

20
 Fins-2 (cont.)
In the spoon example, we had taken the spoon tip to be
insulated. We can account for the convective heat transfer at
the tip by increasing the fin length L to LC= L+ (t/2), but still
keeping it insulated!

Tip with LC=L+t/2

convection Adiabatic
t tip

Original fin
length L L t/2

This makes the calculation easy, and the error is low.

21
 Example 6
Consider the fin of Example 4. Instead of
an infinite fin, take it as 50 mm long with
Tbase of 800 C and a convecting tip.
Calculate the fin heat transfer for
(a) fin with convecting tip, and
(b) an adiabatic fin with length correction.

What is the % error in the heat flow?

22
Fin Efficiency

23
Zero thermal resistance or infinite
thermal conductivity (Tfin = Tb)

24
Efficiency of straight fins of rectangular, triangular, and parabolic profiles.

25
Efficiency of annular fins of constant thickness t.

26
27
 Fins with triangular and parabolic profiles contain less material
and are more efficient than the ones with rectangular profiles.
The fin efficiency decreases with increasing fin length. Why?
How to choose fin length? Increasing the length of the fin
beyond a certain value cannot be justified unless the added
benefits outweigh the added cost.
Fin lengths that cause the fin efficiency to drop below 60 percent
usually cannot be justified economically.
28
The efficiency of most fins used in practice is above 90 percent.
 Fin
Effectiveness

Effectiveness
of a fin

The thermal conductivity k of the fin

material should be as high as possible.
Use aluminum, copper, iron.
The ratio of the perimeter to the cross-
sectional area of the fin p/Ac should be
as high as possible. Use slender pin fins.
Low convection heat transfer coefficient
h. Place fins on the gas (air) side.
29
Proper Length of a Fin

mL = 5 an infinitely long fin

Because of the gradual temperature drop mL = 1 offers a good compromise
along the fin, the region near the fin tip makes between heat transfer
little or no contribution to heat transfer. performance and the fin size. 30
Multiple fins Fin array

Multiple fins can be arranged on a surface in several

ways:
(a) a no. of pin fins on a flat surface
(b) a no. of pin fins on a pipe
(c) a no. of plate fins on a flat surface
(d) a no. of plate fins longitudinally on a pipe
(e) a no. of annular fins on a tube (normal to its axis)
How do you calculate the heat transfer from both the
fins and the base surface?
(i) Calculate the heat transfer from one fin
(ii) Find the no. of fins and multiply (i) by the no. of fins
(iii) Calculate the unfinned base surface area
(iv) Find the heat transfer from it
(v) Add up (ii) and (iv)
31
The total rate of heat transfer from a
finned surface

Overall effectiveness for a finned surface

The overall fin effectiveness depends

on the fin density (number of fins per
unit length) as well as the
effectiveness of the individual fins.
The overall effectiveness is a better
measure of the performance of a Various surface areas associated
finned surface than the effectiveness with a rectangular surface with
32
of the individual fins. three fins.
Overall fin efficiency for an array of fins:

q Define terms: Ab: base area exposed to

f
coolant
qb Af: surface area of a single fin
At: total area including base area and total
finned surface, At=Ab+NAf
N: total number of fins
qt qb Nq f hAb (Tb T ) N f hAf (Tb T )
h[( At NAf ) N f Af ](Tb T ) h[ At NAf (1 f )](Tb T )
NAf
hAt [1 (1 f )](Tb T ) O hAt (Tb T )
At
NAf
Define overall fin efficiency: O 1 (1 f )
At
33
Example 9
A room heater consists of finned tubes inside which saturated steam
condenses at 1000 C. The tubes are made of copper, 30 mm outer
diameter. Annular fins of aluminum, 1.5 mm thick, are fitted tightly on the
tube.
The fin pitch is 5 mm. Air at 300 C flowing past the fins gives rise to a heat
transfer coefficient of 120 W/m2 K. If the latent heat of steam is 2500 kJ/kg,
find the amount of steam condensed per hour over one meter length of
pipe.

30 mm
55
dia
mm
dia

1.5 mm 5 mm

Refer to Figure 3-63, page 162, Cengel Second Edition

34
Example 10
A multi-fin heat sink stack for electronic applications is
formed between parallel plates, where the top and
bottom plates can be attached to circuit boards
dissipating heat.
A stack is 200 mm wide, 100 mm deep and contains 40
fins, each of length 10 mm. The entire stack is made of
pure aluminum, 1.0 mm thick. Air at 300 K, flowing
through the fin passages, has a heat transfer coefficient
of 150 W/m2 K.
If the maximum allowable plate temperature is 400 K,
what is the maximum heat dissipation from the stack?
What percentage of this heat dissipation is directly from
the base surface to air?

35
K for pure Aluminum (from
property tables) = 237 W/ m K 100 mm

12 mm
To calculate the heat transfer from
10 mm
the unfinned width of base plate:
q from base plate =
200
2 x q per base plate = mm

2 [ h.A. (Tbase - T) ] =
2 x 150 x (0.2 - 40 x 0.001) x 0.1) x (400-300) = 480
q per fin = tanh (mLfin)
Tbase = Mid-plane of fin = insulated Tbase =
400 K 400 K

Lfin = 5 mm

36
There are 20 fins, i.e., 40 dual fins, 2 sides per fin.
Therefore, total qfin = 80 x q per fin
mL = hP L= 2h L= 2 150 x 0.005
kA kt 237 0.001

= 0.178
Total heat transfer from fins
= 80 x 0.843 x 100 x 0.176 = 1187 W
Total heat dissipation from fin stack
= 1667 W
Percentage of direct heat dissipation from
37
base plate = 28.8 %
A common approximation used in the analysis of fins is to assume the fin
temperature to vary in one direction only (along the fin length) and the
temperature variation along other directions is negligible.
Perhaps you are wondering if this one-dimensional approximation is a
reasonable one.
This is certainly the case for fins made of thin metal sheets such as the fins
on a car radiator, but we wouldnt be so sure for fins made of thick
materials.
Studies have shown that the error involved in one-dimensional fin analysis
is negligible (less than about 1 percent) when

where is the characteristic thickness of the fin, which is taken to

be the plate thickness t for rectangular fins and the diameter D for
cylindrical ones.

38
 Heat sinks: Specially
designed finned surfaces
which are commonly used in
the cooling of electronic
equipment, and involve one-
of-a-kind complex
geometries.
The heat transfer
performance of heat sinks is
usually expressed in terms of
their thermal resistances R.
A small value of thermal
resistance indicates a small
temperature drop across the
heat sink, and thus a high fin
efficiency.

39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52