Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 20732078

www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Eect of electric eld on heat transfer performance of

automobile radiator at low frontal air velocity
S. Vithayasai a, T. Kiatsiriroat
b

a,*

, A. Nuntaphan

a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
Mae Moh Training Center, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, Lampang 52220, Thailand

Received 8 November 2005; accepted 19 April 2006

Available online 12 June 2006

Abstract
The eect of electric eld on the performance of automobile radiator is investigated in this work. In this experiment, a louvered n and
at tube automobile radiator was mounted in a wind tunnel and there was heat exchange between a hot water stream circulating inside
the tube and a cold air stream owing through the external surface. The electric eld was supplied on the airside of the heat exchanger
and its supply voltage was adjusted from 0 kV to 12 kV.
From the experiment, it was found that the unit with electric eld pronounced better heat transfer rate, especially at low frontal velocity of air. The correlations for predicting the air-side heat transfer coecient of the automobile radiator, with and without electric eld, at
low frontal air velocity were also developed and the predicted results agreed very well with the experimental data.
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Automobile radiator; Electric eld; Heat transfer enhancement; Heat exchanger testing

1. Introduction
Automobile radiator, one type of cross ow heat
exchanger, is an important part of vehicle engine. Normally, it is used as a cooling unit of the engine and the
water is heat transfer medium. The heat exchanger conguration is louvered n and at tube as shown in Fig. 1. In
some cases, the unit is also modied to be a heat recovery
device or a heat exchanger in industrial processes because
of its low price compared to other heat exchanger types
and it is available in the market. For example, Kiatsiriroat
et al. [1] used automobile radiators for recovering waste
heat from the ue gas of package boilers and the payback
was less than two years. Nuntaphan and Kiatsiriroat [2,3]
modied automobile radiators to be thermosyphon heat
pipes and they were used as waste heat and coolness recovery devices.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +66 53 944144; fax: +66 53 944145.

E-mail address: tanong@dome.eng.cmu.ac.th (T. Kiatsiriroat).

1359-4311/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2006.04.018

Normally, the automobile radiator exchanges heat

between hot water and cold air. Because of its low air-side
thermal performance, the unit always attaches louvered
ns on the air-side surface to increase the heat transfer
area. This kind of n enormously increases the air-side
heat transfer coecient, especially at high Reynolds number of the air stream. Many researchers investigated the
air-side thermal performance of louvered n and tube
heat exchangers. Chang and Wang [4] and Chang et al.
[5] collected extensive experimental results of louvered
n and tube heat exchangers and developed the generalized correlations for predicting the heat transfer coecient
and the air stream pressure drop in this heat exchanger
type.
However, at low Reynolds number of the air stream, the
heat transfer performance is rather poor. One promising
method to increase the heat transfer is operating the unit
under an electric eld. The use of electric eld (known as
electrohydrodynamic enhancement method EHD) exerts
high force on the uid particles at the heat transfer surface
thus higher heat transfer rate is obtained. Moreover, the

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S. Vithayasai et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 20732078

Nomenclature
A
Cp
di
do
ft
h
k
l
m_
NTU
Nu
P
Pr
Ps
Q
ReD
T
va

area (m2)
specic heat (J/kg K)
inside diameter of bare tube (m)
outside diameter of bare tube (m)
n thickness (m)
heat transfer coecient (W/m2 K)
thermal conductivity (W/m K)
n length (m)
mass ow rate (kg/s)
number of transfer unit
Nusselt number
pressure (Pa)
Prandtl number
electrical power supply (W)
heat transfer rate (W)
Reynolds number
temperature (C)
frontal velocity of air (m/s)

electrical power consumption is very low compared to the

boosted heat rate and the pressure drop of uid ow is very
small. Fig. 2 shows the basic principle of the EHD
enhancement heat transfer technique. As seen in the gure,
when high voltage is supplied at an electrode, corona wind
is generated around the electrode and the ion wind produced by ionization of air near the electrode are drifted
out of the electrode. The ions transfer momentum to the
air molecules by collisions. Therefore, many small turbulences of air stream occur and the heat transfer coecient
could be improved.
Many research works reported that the electric eld can
increase the air-side thermal performance of heat exchanger. For example, Wangnipparnto et al. [6,7] used the elec-

vmax
Vs
Vs,max

maximum velocity (m/s)

voltage supply (kV)
break down voltage (kV)

Greek symbols
d
tube thickness
e
eectiveness
g
eciency
l
dynamic viscosity (Pa s)
q
density (kg/m3)
Subscripts
a
air
b
bare tube
f
n
i
inlet, tube side
o
outlet, air side
w
water

tric eld to promote the heat transfer rate of the

thermosyphon heat exchanger at low Reynolds number.
Kui [8] studied the performance of air to air heat pipe
under the electric eld and developed the heat transfer
model for the equipment. Allen and Karayiannis [9] presented the eect of electric eld on single phase and two
phase heat transfer. They showed that the heat transfer rate
increased signicantly due to the electric eld.
The objective of this research is to study the air-side performance of automobile radiator operating under electric
eld at low air velocity. The correlations for predicting
the air-side heat transfer coecient of the automobile radiator, with and without electric eld, at low frontal air
velocity are also developed.

Air

Electrode
Air

Heat Exchanger

Corona Wind

High Voltage Supply

Fig. 1. Louvered n and at tube automobile radiator.

Fig. 2. Basic principle of EHD enhancement heat transfer.

S. Vithayasai et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 20732078

2. Experimental set-up

2075

High Voltage Generator

Horizontal Electrode
Cross Section Area = 1mm2

25 mm

Fig. 4. The arrangement of electrodes.

3. Data reduction
In this experiment, the hot water owing inside the tube
transfers heat to the outside air owing in the wind tunnel.
The air-side and the tube-side heat transfer rates can be calculated as
Qa m_ a Cpa T ao  T ai ;
Qw m_ w Cpw T wi  T wo ;

1
2

where Qa and Qw are the heat transfer rates at the air and
the water streams, respectively. The mathematical average
of the heat transfer rate is

High Voltage Generator

Mixing
Device

Nozzle
Blower with
Frequency Inverter

Heat Exchanger

Direction of Air Flow

50 mm
Automobile Radiator

Fig. 3 shows a schematic diagram of the experimental

apparatus. An automobile radiator is mounted in a wind
tunnel and there is heat exchange between hot water owing in the tube-side and air stream owing across the heat
exchanger. Note that, the velocity of the air stream is
measured by a standard nozzle and controlled by a frequency inverter which controls the air blower speed. The
inlet and the outlet temperatures of the air and the hot
water at the automobile radiator are measured by a set
of K-type thermocouples having 0.1 C accuracy. The
ow rate of the hot water is measured by a ow meter
having 0.1 l/min accuracy. The inlet temperature of
water is controlled by a temperature controller. In this
experiment, a set of parallel electrodes is installed in front
of the automobile radiator and Figs. 4 and 5 show the
electrode positions and the automobile radiator dimensions, respectively.
In the experiment, the frontal velocity of the air stream
is varied from 0.5 to 2.1 m/s. The inlet temperature of the
air is 25 C. The ow rate and the inlet temperature of
the water are kept constant at 20 l/min and 75 C, respectively. The supply voltage of the electric eld is controlled
by a high voltage generator and in this experiment it is varied from 0 to 12 kV.
Note that, all of the experimental data are collected
under the steady state condition and they are used for calculating the heat transfer performance of the automobile
radiator.

Air Stream
P

Temperature Measuring Point

Pressure Drop Measuring Point

Flow Meter
Hot Water
Tank
Heater with
Temperature Controller
Pump

Fig. 3. The schematic sketch of the experimental apparatus.

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S. Vithayasai et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 20732078

390 mm

2.5 mm

1.625 mm
9 mm

50 mm

9 mm

5.6 mm

Tube, 39 tubes
Material : Al

390 mm

50 mm

Louver
Fin Thickness 0.035 mm
Material : Cu

13.25 mm

Front View
16.25 mm
Top View

Automobile Radiator

Fig. 5. Schematic sketch and dimensions of the automobile radiator.

Qave 0:5Qa Qw :

The performance of the heat exchangers is analyzed by

the conventional eNTU technique and the eectiveness,
e, is dened as
e

Qave
:
_
mCp
min T wi  T ai

The relationship of the eectiveness to the number of

transfer unit (NTU) and the minimum heat capacity ow
_
rate mCp
min , at the air side could be [10]
i
1 h

NTU
e  1  eC 1e
;
5
C
UA
;
6
NTU
_
mCp
min
_
mCp
min
C
:
7
_
mCp
max
With Eqs. (4) and (5) the total heat transfer coecient,
UA, could be evaluated. The total heat transfer coecient
can also be obtained from the following overall resistance
as
1
1
d
1

;
UA go ho Ao k t At hi Ai

where h is heat transfer coecient, A is surface area, d is

tube diameter, kt is thermal conductivity of tube wall, d
is wall thickness, go is surface eciency and the subscripts
o, i, t denote the air-side, the tube-side and the tube wall,
respectively. The tube-side heat transfer coecient can be
calculated from Gnielinski correlation [11] as
 
kw
ReDi  1000Prfi =2
p
hi
;
9
d i 1 12:7 fi =2Pr2=3  1
fi 1:58 lnReDi  3:282 :

10

ReDi is tube-side Reynolds number based on tube hydraulic

diameter. The relation of the surface eciency in Eq. (8) to
the n eciency g is

Af
1  g;
Ao
Ao Af Ab :

go 1 

11
12

Ao is total surface area of nned tube, Af is surface area

of n, Ab is surface area of the bare tube. The n eciency
g can be approximated from the Schmidt approximation
[12] as
g

tanhml
;
ml

where
s
2ho
m
;
k f ft

13

14

kf is thermal conductivity of the n, l is n length and ft is

n thickness. With the values of hiAi, and the wall properties and dimensions, the air-side heat transfer coecient
could be estimated and it could be set in the form of Nusselt number as
Nu

ho d o
:
ka

15

Nu is Nusselt number, do is outside diameter of tube based

on hydraulic diameter and ka is air thermal conductivity.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Performance analysis
The heat transfer rates of the automobile radiator with
and without electric eld are shown in Fig. 6. Note that,
the supplied high voltages are 0 kV (no electric eld),
4 kV, 8 kV and 12 kV. The results show that the heat transfer rates of all cases increase with the air stream velocity. It
is also found that, the electric eld can enhance the heat
transfer rate especially at low frontal air velocity and
increasing the supplied voltage results in higher the heat
transfer rate. At low frontal air velocity, the electric eld
exerts a force on the uid particles at the heat transfer sur-

S. Vithayasai et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 20732078

2077

35

7000

0 kV
4 kV
8 kV
12 kV

30

6000

25

P (Pa)

Q (W)

5000
4000
3000

0 kV
4 kV
8 kV
12 kV

2000
1000
0.4

20
15
10
5
0

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.2

0.5

140

ho (W/m2K)

120

0.6
0.5

0 kV
4 kV
8 kV
12 kV

40

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

10

2.2

va (m/s)
Fig. 7. Eect of EHD on airside heat transfer coecient of automobile
radiator.

12

14

Vs (kV)
Fig. 9. Electrical energy consumption of EHD enhancement technique.

4.2. Mathematical models

Mathematical models for predicting the heat transfer
coecient of the automobile radiator with and without
the electric eld at low Reynolds number are also developed. The heat transfer coecient is set in the term of Nusselt number as dened in Eq. (15). When there is no electric
eld, the empirical correlation developed is
10:145 lnReDo  46:081Pr0:33 ;
q vmax d o
;
ReDo a
la
Cp l
Pr a a ;
ka

80
60

va = 0.55 m/s
va = 0.75 m/s
va = 1.00 m/s
va = 1.30 m/s
va = 1.50 m/s
va = 2.00 m/s

0.7

NuNON

100

0.8

2.5

0.8

Ps (W)

face thus the heat transfer between the heating surface and
the owing air becomes higher. However, for high air
velocity, the electric eld slightly aects the heat transfer.
When the frontal velocity is over 1.6 m/s, the improvement
is not signicant.
Fig. 7 shows the heat transfer coecient of the automobile radiator. The result agrees well with those of Fig. 6.
The air-side heat transfer coecient increases with the supply voltage. Note that the supply voltage could not be
higher than 12 kV due to electrical breakdown. Again, at
high frontal velocity, the heat transfer coecients of all
cases are nearly the same. The phenomena are similar to
the works of Wangnipparnto et al. [6,7] who used electric
eld to enhance heat transfer in thermosyphon heat
exchanger.
Fig. 8 shows the pressure drop in the air stream. It is
found that the electric eld aects the pressure drop only
slightly for all testing velocities. Moreover, it is found that
this technique consumes very low electrical power as shown
in Fig. 9.

0.6

Fig. 8. Pressure drop of the automobile radiator.

Fig. 6. Eect of EHD on heat transfer rate of automobile radiator.

20
0.4

1.5

va (m/s)

va (m/s)

EHD

16
17
18

where 100 6 ReDo 6 600.

The Reynolds number in Eq. (17) is calculated from the
maximum velocity (vmax) and the outside hydraulic diameter of the at tube (do).
Fig. 10 shows a comparison of Nusselt number from the
experiment and that from the model. It is found that both
results agree very well.

2078

S. Vithayasai et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 20732078

velocity. When the frontal air velocity is over 1.6 m/s,

the electric eld does not show a signicant eect on
the thermal performance.
2. The degree of heat transfer enhancement depends on the
value of the voltage supplied. Increasing the supplied
voltage results in higher enhancement of the heat transfer rate. The maximum voltage supplied is 12 kV due to
the electrical breakdown.
3. The developed mathematical models could be used to
predict the air-side heat transfer coecient of the automobile radiator at low air velocity, with and without
electric eld. The results agree very well with those of
the experiment.

20
Nu = (10.145ln(ReDo)-46.081)Pr0.33

18
16

Numodel

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

10

15

20

Nuexp
Fig. 10. Comparison of Nusselt numbers from the experiment and the
model when there is no electric eld.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the Thailand Research Fund for carrying out this
study.

2.0
+10%

References

1.5

Numodel

-10%
1.0

0.5

NuEHD/NuNON_EHD = 2.1245ReDo-0.1162(Vs/Vs,max)0.0528

0.0
0.0

Acknowledgement

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

Nuexp
Fig. 11. Comparison of Nusselt number from experiment and model in
case of a presence of electric eld.

The mathematical model of the Nusselt number when

the heat exchanger is operated under the electric eld could
be correlated as

0:0528
NuEHD
Vs
0:1162
2:1245ReDo
;
19
NuNON EHD
V s; max
where Vs is supply voltage and Vs,max is breakdown voltage. In this experiment the break down voltage is 13.6 kV.
Fig. 11 shows the comparison of the Nusselt number
from the experiment and that from the model when the
electric eld is taken. It is found that the model results
agree very well with those of the experiment within 10%.
5. Conclusion
From the study, the major conclusions are as follows:
1. The electric eld can enhance the heat transfer rate of
the automobile radiator especially at low frontal air

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