The Effect of Fouling on the Performance of Finned Tube Heat Exchanger

This paper presents an investigation of the effect of fouling by considering a tube and plate fin geometry for which performance characteristics are well defined.

By matching a particular heat exchanger to a given fan it can be shown that the air-side heat transfer coefficient increases as the air-side passages become progressively blocked, reaching a maximum close to the fully blocked condition.

For moderate fouling this increase largely compensates for the change in mean temperature difference brought about by the variation in air flow rate, giving an overall performance very close to that for the clean condition.