Numerical Study on Enhancing Heat Transfer of the Belt-type Resistance Heater in the Hypersonic Wind Tunnel

In this study, the thermofluid characteristics of double spirally coiled tube heat exchanger (DSCTHE) were investigated numerically. A three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model was developed using ansys 14.5 software package. To investigate the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of DSCTHE, the Realize k–ε turbulence viscous model had been applied with enhanced wall treatment for simulating the turbulent thermofluid characteristics. The governing equations were solved by a finite volume discretization method. The effect of coil curvature ratio on DSCTHE was investigated with three various curvature ratios of 0.023–0.031 and 0.045 for inner tube side and 0.024–0.032–0.047 for annular side. The effects of addition of Al2O3 nanoparticle on water flows inside inner tube side or annular side with different volume concentrations of 0.5%, 1%, and 2% were also presented. The numerical results were carried out for Reynolds number with a range from 3500 to 21,500 for inner tube side and from 5000 to 24,000 for annular side, respectively. The obtained results showed that with increasing coil curvature ratio, a significant effect was discovered on enhancing heat transfer in DSCTHE at the expense of increasing pressure drop. The results also showed that the heat transfer enhancement was increased with increasing Al2O3 nanofluid concentration, and the penalty of pressure drop was approximately negligible.

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Tapered Twisted Tape Inserts for Enhanced Heat Transfer

Journal of Heat Transfer ◽

10.1115/1.4031207 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 138 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

B. V. N. Ramakumar ◽

J. D. Arsha ◽

Praveen Tayal

Keyword(s):

Heat Transfer ◽

Numerical Study ◽

Flow Direction ◽

Twisted Tape ◽

Complex Flow ◽

Ansys Fluent ◽

Taper Angle ◽

Twisted Tapes ◽

Plain Tube ◽

Enhancing Heat Transfer

Insertion of twisted tapes in smooth channels is one of the passive methods used for enhancing heat transfer. Flow and associated heat transfer characteristics of these channels are very complex. Understanding this complex flow is helpful while designing new passive methods. Numerical methods like computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are gaining much popularity for analyzing and designing these heat transfer enhancement techniques. This paper focuses on such a numerical study. The preliminary study is focused on development of numerical methodology through validation. Successive studies are aimed at development of an innovative design for twisted tape. Twisted tapes with taper angle (tapered twisted tapes, i.e., tape width decreases along the flow direction) are developed and evaluated on the basis of the performance of these tapes with those of conventional tapes. A circular tube with tapered twisted tape with a twist ratio of 3 and taper angles of 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, and 0.7 is considered for this study along with a plain tube. Three Reynolds numbers (Re) of 8545, 11393, and 13333 are considered to examine the sensitivity of the performance. Simulations are performed with a commercially available CFD tool, ansys fluent (v14.0). Heat transfer and pressure drop results are presented in the form of Nusselt number (Nu), friction factor (f), and overall enhancement ratio (η). An increase of 17% in overall enhancement is predicted with taper angle of 0.5.

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