The current experimental study focuses on designing novel shapes of transverse turbulators to improve the performance of solar air heaters. Fourteen designs are derived from the original case having length × width × thickness of 30 mm × 15 mm × 0.8 mm. These turbulators are tested in a rectangular channel, and the thermal and hydraulic transport performances of the fitted channel are compared with those obtained for the vacant channel. Although the novel geometries may provide a weaker thermal characteristic through the channel, the penalty in the hydraulic characteristic is decreased significantly compared to the original shape, leading to better overall hydrothermal performances. It is found that the novel designs of transverse turbulators own lower values of heat transfer coefficient, that is ranging from 12.1% to 45.2%, whereas the pressure drop decreases within the range of 48%–91% at the studied Reynolds numbers (Re = 1643, 3286, and 4929). The results show that the Nusselt number ratio (Nu_fitted/Nu_clear) gets reducing trend with increasing Re, while the friction factor ratio (f_fitted/f_clear) gets increasing trend. An appropriate tradeoff between thermal and hydraulic characteristics is established by using a specific design which presents minimum values of pressure drop and maximum values of the performance index. The highest index of 1.69 is recorded for this turbulator design at Re = 1643.

目前的实验研究侧重于设计新颖形状的横向湍流器，以提高太阳能空气加热器的性能。长×宽×厚30mm×15mm×0.8mm的原表壳衍生出十四种设计。这些湍流器在矩形通道中进行测试，并将拟合通道的热和水力传输性能与空通道获得的性能进行比较。尽管新的几何形状可以通过通道提供较弱的热特性，但与原始形状相比，水力特性的损失显着降低，从而导致更好的整体水热性能。发现横向湍流器的新颖设计具有较低的传热系数值，即范围从 12.1% 到 45.2%，Re  = 1643、3286 和 4929）。结果表明，随着Re的增大，努塞尔数比( Nu _fitd / Nu _clear )呈减小趋势，而摩擦系数比( f _fited / f _clear )呈增大趋势。通过使用具有压降最小值和性能指标最大值的特定设计，可以在热特性和液压特性之间进行适当的权衡。在Re  = 1643处记录了该湍流器设计的最高指数 1.69 。