Goodness factor for fan cooling performance

[gomerpyle]

I have a set up which is basically a small wind tunnel (single rectangular channel) with an axial fan at the inlet. The experiment is testing the effect of various shaped "shrouds" that constrict flow around an inductor to improve the convective cooling. I have heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops gathered from the different shroud concepts, but I need some sort of measure of performance to evaluate them.

Would plotting HTC versus power consumed by the fan by an effective way to do this? The goal here is to minimize fan power but maximize the heat transfer.

 

[russ_watters]

Heat transfer vs flow, not heat transfer coefficient, I would think. It isn't clear to me what exactly you are doing though because heat transfer coefficient should be a constant based on the geometry and properties of what heat is flowing from and adding any restriction should reduce airflow and therefore reduce heat dissipation.

 

[gomerpyle]

Heat transfer vs flow, not heat transfer coefficient, I would think. It isn't clear to me what exactly you are doing though because heat transfer coefficient should be a constant based on the geometry and properties of what heat is flowing from and adding any restriction should reduce airflow and therefore reduce heat dissipation.

The shrouds increase the velocity of the air around the inductor because the cross-sectional area is reduced. Each different shroud shape has a different pressure drop associated with it, and different heat transfer characteristics.