Experimental Investigation of Heat Transfer Enhancement in Radiating Pin Fin

A literature review shows that much of work on radiating fins has been carried out analytically and numerically. Presently, a radiating pin fin with grooves and threads on its outside surface is investigated experimentally. A test facility with a vacuum chamber and instrumentation is fabricated. The heat input to the fin is varied such that the base temperature is maintained constant under steady state. Based on a study of effect of vacuum, using available resources, the chamber is designed for a vacuum of 80 mm Hg such that the contribution of convection to the total heat transfer could be ignored. The study shows that there exist optimum angle of grooves and number of threads per inch for which the heat loss per unit mass is a maximum. The grooved / threaded radiating fin loses 1.4 and 1.2 times greater heat per unit mass, respectively, compared to the bare pin fin.