Numerical simulation of heat transfer characteristics of taper helical and spiral tube heat exchanger

Abstract

The paper investigates the heat transfer characteristics of the heat exchanger under two different configurations namely taper helical tube and spiral tube type heat exchanger. The working fluid is water which flows in tubes kept horizontally and the mass flow rate ranges from 0.04 kg/s to 0.16 kg/s. The effect of tube configuration parameters and Reynolds number on heat transfer coefficient and Nusselt number were studied. Regression equations have been developed for both the configurations under horizontal orientation using various process parameters and regression tools available in Minitab Software. A comparison has been made between the theoretical results and the results obtained from simulation gives an error of 15% which is well within the permissible limit. The result indicates that the highest value of Nusselt number is greater by 21% than taper helical tube heat exchanger which is attributed to better heat transfer characteristics of spiral tube heat exchanger and hence the former is thermally superior over the latter. In this study, temperature and velocity contour have been developed for both the configurations which clearly indicates that, when heat transfer is considered, spiral configuration should be preferred over taper helical configuration.

Keywords

• Heat transfer coefficient
• Taper helical and spiral tube
• Nusselt number
• Reynolds number

References

1. The article references can be accessed from the .pdf file.