Heating performance for a hybrid radiant-convective heating terminal by orthogonal test method

The hybrid radiant-convective heating system is more and more popular due to its advantages of more thermal comfort and higher air quality than the conventional heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system. To improve further the radiant-convective heating system, the effects of structural parameters on the heating performance of the radiant-convective heating terminal was investigated numerically by ANSYS FLUENT in this study. Firstly, the numerical model was built by referring the practical terminal and verified by the experimental data accordingly. Then, the influence degree order of three parameter factors including fin pitch, fin height and copper pipe spacing on the heating performance was obtained by orthogonal test method. The influence degree order of three parameters was fin height, pipe spacing and fin pitch in turns. Furthermore, the influences of these parameters on heating performance and pressure drop were evaluated. It was obtained that the heating performance increased firstly and then decreased with the enlargement of fin height and pipe spacing. In contrast with this, pressure drop rose with the increasing fin pitch and decreased with the increase of pipe spacing. The increase of fin pitch enlarged the heating performance and pressure drop of the heating terminal.