HEAT TRANSFER FROM

FINNED SURFACES

Chapter Three

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 CONTENTS
3.1 Steady Heat Conduction in Plane Wall
3.2 Thermal Resistance (Plane Wall)
3.3 Thermal Resistance Networks
3.4 Steady Heat Conduction in Cylinders
3.5 Thermal Resistance (Cylinders)
3.6 Heat Transfer from Finned Surfaces

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 Learning Outcomes
At the end of this lesson, students should be able
to;
 Analyze finned surfaces
 Determine the effectiveness of using finned surfaces
 Select appropriate heat sinks for electronics equipment

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 3.6 Heat Transfer from Fin
Surfaces
Newton’s law of cooling:

When Ts and T are fixed, two ways to increase the rate of heat transfer are
• To 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.
• To increase the surface area As by attaching to the surface extended surfaces
called fins made of highly conductive materials such as aluminum.
The thin plate fins of a car
radiator greatly increase the
rate of heat transfer to the
air.

Some innovative fin

designs.

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 3.6.1 General Conduction (Fin)
Analysis
For extended surfaces, we need to know:
How much it improves heat transfer
The temperature distribution along the fin

Assumption made in fin analysis:

 1-D steady state conditions in x-direction with no heat generation
 Temperature is uniform across the fin thickness
 Thermal conductivity is constant
 Negligible radiation from the fin surface
 Convection heat transfer coefficient, h is uniform over the surface

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 Fin Equation
Consider the extended surface below with its
Applying the conservation of energy
differential element. Volume element of a fin at requirement:
location x having a length of x, cross-sectional
area of Ac, and perimeter of p.

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 Fin Equation
For constant cross section, Ac and constant thermal conductivity, the previous
equation becomes

Differential
Equation

where
Temperature
excess

The general solution of the differential equation is

C1 and C2 can be found by utilizing appropriate boundary conditions.

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 Fin Equation
C1 and C2 can be found by utilizing appropriate boundary conditions.

Fin Tip ( x = L)
Fin Base (x = 0) condition conditions

Table 3.4 provides the summary of temperature

distribution and heat rate for fin with uniform cross
sectional area for each of the fin tip condition
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 Problem 3.5
A very long rod 5mm in diameter has one end maintained at
100oC. The surface of the rod is exposed to ambient air at
25oC with a convection heat transfer coefficient of 100
W/m.K
1. Determine the temperature distributions along rods constructed from pure copper
(k = 398 W/m.K)
2. What are the corresponding heat losses?

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 FIN EFFICIENCY
Fin efficiency : Ratio of (actual) heat transfer to the maximum
(idealized) heat transfer from the fin
Q f Q f b 1
f    Rt , f  
Qmax hA f  b Q f hA f  f (3.86)

Where Af is the surface area of the fin.

Maximum driving potential for heat transfer (convection) is the temperature

difference between base and the fluid.  b  Tb  T

Expressions for f are provided in Table 3.5 for common geometries. Also
refer to Figure 3.18 and 3.19.

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

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Efficiency of annular fins of constant thickness t.

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 FIN EFFECTIVENESS
Fin effectiveness: Ratio of the fin heat transfer rate to the heat
transfer that would exist without the fin

Q f Rt ,b The
f  f  effectiveness
hAb b Rt , f of a fin

 In any rational design, value of  f should be as large

as possible.
 Use of fins may rarely be justified unless  f ≥ 2.
 Fin effectiveness can be enhanced by;
 using fin materials with higher thermal
conductivity
 Increasing the ratio of P/Ac – use of thin, closely
spaced fin is preferred
 Small value of h (gas is preferred than liquid)
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 FIN PERFORMANCE (cont’d)

Corrected Length
 To simplify computations of fin heat transfer of convection tip
 Based on assuming equivalence between heat transfer from actual fin
with tip convection and heat transfer from a longer, hypothetical fin with
an adiabatic tip

Lc  L  (t / 2) For rectangular fin

Lc  L  D / 4  For pin fin

Therefore, for fin with convection tip

q fin  M tanh mLc sinh mL  (h / mk ) cosh mL
instead of q fin  M
cosh mL  (h / mk ) sinh mL
tanh mLc
f 
mLc
Approximation errors are negligible if ht/k or hD/2k  0.0625.
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 OVERALL FIN EFFECTIVENESS
The total rate of heat transfer from a
finned surface

Overall effectiveness for a finned surface

The overall effectiveness is a better

measure of the performance of a finned
surface than the effectiveness of the
individual fins.
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 Proper Length of a Fin

mL = 5  an infinitely long fin

mL = 1 offer a good compromise
between heat transfer
performance and the fin size.
Because of the gradual temperature
drop along the fin, the region near the
fin tip makes little or no contribution to
heat
Faiza transfer.
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 Problem 3.6
The engine cylinder of a motorcycle is constructed of 2024-T6 aluminum alloy
(k = 186) and is of height H=0.15 m and outside diameter 50 mm. Under typical
operating conditions the outer surface of the cylinder is at temperature of 500 K
and is exposed to ambient air at 300 K, with a convection coefficient of 50
W/m2K. Annular fins are integrally cast with the cylinder to increase heat
transfer to surroundings. Consider five such fins, which are of thickness t=6
mm, length L=20 mm, and equally spaced. What is the increase in heat transfer
due to use of fins?

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 HEAT SINKS
 They are specially designed finned surfaces
 Commonly used in cooling of electronics
equipment

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 HEAT SINKS
 The heat transfer performance for heat sink is
usually expressed in the terms of their thermal
resistance which is defined as:

 Tb  T
Q fin   hAfin fin Tb  T 
R

A small value of R indicates a small temperature drop across the heat

sink, and this high fin efficiency.

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 HEAT SINKS
Table 3-4

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 PROBLEM 3.7
A 60-W power transistor is to be cooled by attaching it to one of the
commercially available heat sinks shown in Table 3–4. Select a heat sink that
will allow the case temperature of the transistor not to exceed 90°C in the
ambient air at 30°C.

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 PROBLEM 3.8
A 40-W power transistor is to be cooled by attaching it to one of
the commercially available heat sinks shown in Table 3–4. Select a
heat sink that will allow the case temperature of the transistor not
to exceed 90° in the ambient air at 20°.

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 PROBLEM 3.9
A 30-W power transistor is to be cooled by attaching it to one of the
commercially available heat sinks shown in Table 3–4. Select a heat
sink that will allow the case temperature of the transistor not to
exceed 80°C in the ambient air at 35°C

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