HEAT TRANSFER FROM

EXTENDED SURFACES
(FINS)
HEAT TRANSFER FROM FINNED
SURFACES
• The rate of heat transfer
from a surface at a
temperature Ts to the
surrounding medium at T is
given by Newton’s law of
cooling as
• Qconv = hAs (Ts - T)
• Finned surfaces are
commonly used in practice
to enhance heat transfer,
and they often increase the
rate of heat transfer from a
surface several fold.
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Common examples of the use of extended surfaces are in
cylinder heads of air cooled engines and compressors and on
electric motor bodies. In air conditioners and radiators tubes
with circumferential fins are used to increase the heat flow.
Electronic chips cannot function without use of fins to dissipate
the heat generated.
Several shapes of fins are in use. These are
(i) Plate fins of constant sectional area
(ii) Plate fins of variable sectional area
(iii) Annular or circumferential fins constant thickness
(iv) Annular fins of variable thickness
(v) Pin fins of constant sectional area and
(vi) Pin fins of variable sectional area.
Some of these are shown in Fig. 4.1.

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Fig. 4.1. Schematic Diagrams of Different Types of Fins:
(a) Longitudinal Fin of Rectangular Profile;
(b) Cylindrical Tube with Fins of Rectangular Profile;
(c) Longitudinal Fin of Trapezoidal Profile;
(d) Longitudinal Fin of Parabolic Profile; (e)
Cylindrical Tube with Radial Fin of Rectangular Profile;
(f) Cylindrical Tube with Radial Fin of Truncated Conical Profile;
(g) Cylindrical Pin Fin;
(h)
4 Truncated Conical Spine;
(i) Parabolic Spine.
• The main aim of the study is to design fins to optimize the use
of a given amount of material to maximize heat transfer.
• For this purpose it will be desirable that the fin surface
temperature is closer to the base surface temperature.
• This can be achieved by the use of materials of high thermal
conductivity like copper or aluminum.
• In terms of weight and ease of lubrication aluminum will score
over copper though its thermal conductivity will be lower.
• It will be shown later that there are limitations about the length
of the fin in terms of effectiveness of the material used.
• In order to increase the area for a given volume, thinner fins
should be chosen.
• Fins are found more valuable when the convective heat
transfer coefficient is low.
• This is the case in the case of gas flow and natural
convection and fins are more commonly used in these cases.
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Fin Equation

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

Boundary condition at fin base

1 Infinitely Long Fin

(Tfin tip = T)
Boundary condition at fin tip

The variation of temperature along the fin

The steady rate of heat transfer from the entire fin

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 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.

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 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

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 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.

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 Temperature distribution in constant area fins for
different boundary conditions,

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Expression for heat flow for fins with various boundaries

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FIN PERFORMANCE
It is necessary to evaluate the performance of fins to
achieve minimum weight or maximum heat flow etc.
Fin effectiveness, fin efficiency total efficiency are some
methods used for performance evaluation of fins.

1. Fin efficiency, η f:
This quantity is more often used to determine the heat flow when
variable area fins are used. Fin efficiency is defined as the ratio of
heat transfer by the fin to the heat transfer that will take place if
the whole surface area of the fin is at the base temperature

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 where As is the surface area of the fin.

For constant area fin with adiabatic tip,

(A)

The surface area As = PL.

This equation can be used in general without significant error
by increasing the fin length with surface area equal to the
area at the tip.
In the case of plate fins new length Lc = L + t/ 2
where t is the thickness.
In the case of circular fins Lc = L + D /4, where D is the
diameter of the fin.
Error associated with this assumption is
negligible if
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 From equation (A), it is seen that fin efficiency is a function of the
term ‘‘m Lc’’.

Assuming fin plate fins P ~ 2W, where W is the width of the fin and A = Wt.
Substituting
(B)
Multiplying and dividing the RHS of (B)

where Ap is called the profile area = Lc × t.

Hence

This relationship is used to plot the fin efficiency of variable area

fins and annular fins. Such a chart for plate fins is given below.
Similar charts are available far annular fins and pin fins.
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• 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.
• 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.
• The efficiency of most fins used in practice is above
90 percent.
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• The thermal conductivity k of the fin 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 gas (air) side.

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 2- Fin Effectiveness:
Fins are used to increase the heat transfer from a surface by
increasing the effective surface area. When fins are not present, the
heat convicted by the base area is given by Ah (To – T∞), where A is
the base area.
When fins are used the heat transferred by the fins, qf, is calculated
using above questions. The ratio of these quantities is defined as fin
effectiveness.

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Fin effectiveness should be as large as possible for effective use of
material. Use of fins with effectiveness less than 2 can be rarely
justified. Considering the long fin boundary,

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3. Overall surface efficiency or total efficiency, ηT
Fin efficiency gives the performance of a single fin. Overall efficiency
gives the performaula of an array of fins and the surface on which
these fins are provided. Let there be N fins each of area Af . Let the
total area be At . The free surface over which convection takes place
is A b = At – N A f
The total heat flow = heat flow by fins + heat flow by base area

This equation can be used to calculate the heat flow in a surface

array provided η t is available
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OPTIMISATION
If fins of constant cross sectional area are used, then there is a
wastage of material because, the section required for heat
conduction for the same temperature gradient will be continuously
decreasing with length. Several possibilities are there for them
choice of section. Some of these are trapezoidal, triangular, convex
parabolic and concave parabolic as shown in Fig. 4.13.

Out of these sections, the concave parabolic has the highest fin
efficiency for a given set of parameters, and this will also require the
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least weight for a given amount of heat dissipation.
FIN WITH RADIATION SURROUNDINGS
Instead of pure convection on the surface, both convection and
radiation or pure radiation may prevail on the surface. In such
a situation, the differential equation will be as shown below:
Convection and radiation.

Pure radiation:

Solutions are available for these cases in hand books. But these
situations can be solved more easily to numerical methods. (σ—
Stefan-Boltzmann constant).

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• When determining the rate of
heat transfer from a finned
surface, we must consider
the unfinned portion of the
surface as well as the fins.
Therefore, the rate of heat
transfer for a surface
containing n fins can be
expressed as

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 Proper Length of a Fin

mL = 5  an infinitely long fin

Because of the gradual temperature drop mL = 1 offer a good
along the fin, the region near the fin tip compromise between heat
makes
26 little or no contribution to heat transfer performance and the
transfer. fin size.
• 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 would not be too 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.
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 Example
• Steam in a heating system flows through tubes whose
outer diameter is D1 = 3 cm and whose walls are
maintained at a temperature of 120 C. Circular
aluminum fins (k =180 W/m · C) of outer diameter D2
= 6 cm and constant thickness t = 2 mm are attached
to the tube. The space between the fins is 3 mm, and
thus there are 200 fins per meter length of the tube.
Heat is transferred to the surrounding air at T = 25C,
with a combined heat transfer coefficient of h = 60
W/m2 · C. Determine the increase in heat transfer from
the tube per meter of its length as a result of adding
fins. The efficiency of fin 0.95

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 Solution

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