Effect of circularity of perforation holes in V-shaped blockages on heat transfer and friction characteristics of rectangular solar air heater duct

Highlights: • Effect of perforation shapes of blocks on heat transfer has been investigated. • A new parameter, circularity which represents perforation shape is proposed. • Effect of angle of attack of V-blocks on heat transfer has been investigated. • Nusselt number and friction factor correlations have been developed. - Abstract: The effect of non-circular perforation holes in term of circularity of V-shaped blockages attached to one heated wall of a rectangular duct of solar air heater. Five different hole shapes ranging from circular to square to rectangular in the circularity range of 1–0.6 have been used with varying relative pitch of 4–12, relative blockage height of 0.4–1.0, open area ratio of 5–25% and angle of attack of 30–75° and Reynolds number of flow was varied between 2000 and 20,000. It has been found that there exists an optimum non-circular shape of perforation holes that yields maximum value of Nusselt number; a perfectly circular hole performs substantially inferior as compared to a non-circular hole of considerable non-circularity (ψ = 0.69). An improvement of Nusselt number value in the ratio of 1.13 has been found when circular perforation holes are replaced by rectangular holes of circularity of 0.69. Correlations of Nusselt number as well of friction factor are established in term of Reynolds number and geometrical parameters of blockages which can be used to predict the values of Nusselt number and friction factor with considerably good accuracy