Simulation on heat transfer performances of hollow tube electric heaters with dual-side longitudinal flow

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (7) ◽  
pp. 2213-2227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xianzhi Mei ◽  
Yaping Chen ◽  
Jiafeng Wu ◽  
Xiaoyu Zhou

Purpose Conventional electric heaters mostly use U-shaped electric heating tubes and the hollow tube electric heaters are new type ones that rely on the heat transfer tubes as heating elements. However, in the original design, the fluid flows through the annular gaps between the shell wall and the supporting plates, the chambers between supporting plates are generally stagnant zones. The purpose of study is to overcome these deficiencies. Design/methodology/approach A modified approach is proposed in which the heating tubes are surrounded by holes on the supporting plates, thus the stagnant flow zone can be eliminated and the heating surfaces of both inside and outside the tube can be fully used. Numerical simulations were carried out on four schemes of hollow tube electric heaters, i.e. plate blocked, countercurrent, parallel and split. The results show that the two schemes of parallel and split can reduce the temperature difference between the two sides of the fixed tube plate, and thus reduce thermal stress and prolong the service life. Findings The split scheme of electric heater has the highest comprehensive index, moderate heat transfer coefficient and minimum pressure drop on the shell side. Its average heat transfer coefficient and comprehensive index are, respectively, 15.7% and 52.9% higher and its average pressure drop and tube wall temperature are, respectively, 57.6% and 19 K lower than those of the original plate blocked scheme, thus it can be recommended as the best scheme of the hollow tube electric heaters. Originality/value Based on the original design of hollow tube electric heater with plate blocked scheme, three plate perforated schemes were proposed and investigated. The thermal and flow features of the four schemes were compared in terms of heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop and comprehensive index ho·Δpo−1/3. The split scheme can reduce the temperature difference between two sides of the fixed tube plate with reduced thermal stress. It has moderate tube wall temperature and heat transfer coefficient, the smallest shell side pressure drop and the highest comprehensive index ho·Δpo−1/3, and it can be recommended as the optimal scheme.

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 2103-2127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Youcef ◽  
Rachid Saim ◽  
Hakan F. Öztop ◽  
Mohamed Ali

Purpose This work presents a numerical study of the dynamic and thermal behavior of a turbulent flow in a shell and tube heat exchanger equipped with a new design of baffle type wing. The implementation of this type of baffle makes it possible to lengthen the path of the fluid in the shell, to increase the heat flux exchanged on the one hand and is to capture the weakness of the shell and tube heat exchanger with segmental baffles on the other hand. Design/methodology/approach This paper aims to analyze numerically the thermo-convective behavior of water using CFD technique by solving the conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy by the finite volume method based on the SIMPLE algorithm for coupling velocity-pressure. To describe the turbulence phenomenon, the Realizable k–ε model is employed. The analysis is done for different mass flow rates. The parameters studied are: the fluid outlet temperature, the average heat transfer coefficient, the pressure drop, the total heat transfer rate, the effect of the geometric shape of the baffle on the thermal behavior. The purpose of this study is to propose a new design of a shell and tube heat exchanger with a high heat transfer coefficient and a lower pressure drop compared to a shell and tube heat exchanger with transverse and segmental baffles. Findings The results showed that the use of the wing baffles enhanced the heat transfer coefficient significantly and reduced the friction coefficient. Compared with segmental baffles, the wing baffles are 11.67, 18.53 and 11.5 per cent lower in the pressure drop and 1.79, 1.9 and 2.39 per cent higher in the Nusselt number for the three mass flow rates 0.5, 1 and 2 kg/s, respectively. Originality/value The originality of this work lies in proposing a three-dimensional analysis for a novel heat exchanger.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hemmat Esfe ◽  
Somchai Wongwises ◽  
Saeed Esfandeh ◽  
Ali Alirezaie

Background: Because of nanofluids applications in improvement of heat transfer rate in heating and cooling systems, many researchers have conducted various experiments to investigate nanofluid's characteristics more accurate. Thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, and heat transfer are examples of these characteristics. Method: This paper presents a modeling and validation method of heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of functionalized aqueous COOH MWCNT nanofluids by artificial neural network and proposing a new correlation. In the current experiment, the ANN input data has included the volume fraction and the Reynolds number and heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop considered as ANN outputs. Results: Comparing modeling results with proposed correlation proves that the empirical correlation is not able to accurately predict the experimental output results, and this is performed with a lot more accuracy by the neural network. The regression coefficient of neural network outputs was equal to 99.94% and 99.84%, respectively, for the data of relative heat transfer coefficient and relative pressure drop. The regression coefficient for the provided equation was also equal to 97.02% and 77.90%, respectively, for these two parameters, which indicates this equation operates much less precisely than the neural network. Conclusion: So, relative heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of nanofluids can also be modeled and estimated by the neural network, in addition to the modeling of nanofluid’s thermal conductivity and viscosity executed by different scholars via neural networks.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Swanand Gaikwad ◽  
Ashish Parmar

AbstractHeat exchangers possess a significant role in energy transmission and energy generation in most industries. In this work, a three-dimensional simulation has been carried out of a shell and tube heat exchanger (STHX) consisting of segmental baffles. The investigation involves using the commercial code of ANSYS CFX, which incorporates the modeling, meshing, and usage of the Finite Element Method to yield numerical results. Much work is available in the literature regarding the effect of baffle cut and baffle spacing as two different entities, but some uncertainty pertains when we discuss the combination of these two parameters. This study aims to find an appropriate mix of baffle cut and baffle spacing for the efficient functioning of a shell and tube heat exchanger. Two parameters are tested: the baffle cuts at 30, 35, 40% of the shell-inside diameter, and the baffle spacing’s to fit 6,8,10 baffles within the heat exchanger. The numerical results showed the role of the studied parameters on the shell side heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop in the shell and tube heat exchanger. The investigation shows an increase in the shell side heat transfer coefficient of 13.13% when going from 6 to 8 baffle configuration and a 23.10% acclivity for the change of six baffles to 10, for a specific baffle cut. Evidence also shows a rise in the pressure drop with an increase in the baffle spacing from the ranges of 44–46.79%, which can be controlled by managing the baffle cut provided.


Author(s):  
Magdalena Jaremkiewicz

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a method of determining the transient temperature of the inner surface of thick-walled elements. The method can be used to determine thermal stresses in pressure elements. Design/methodology/approach An inverse marching method is proposed to determine the transient temperature of the thick-walled element inner surface with high accuracy. Findings Initially, the inverse method was validated computationally. The comparison between the temperatures obtained from the solution for the direct heat conduction problem and the results obtained by means of the proposed inverse method is very satisfactory. Subsequently, the presented method was validated using experimental data. The results obtained from the inverse calculations also gave good results. Originality/value The advantage of the method is the possibility of determining the heat transfer coefficient at a point on the exposed surface based on the local temperature distribution measured on the insulated outer surface. The heat transfer coefficient determined experimentally can be used to calculate thermal stresses in elements with a complex shape. The proposed method can be used in online computer systems to monitor temperature and thermal stresses in thick-walled pressure components because the computing time is very short.


2013 ◽  
Vol 832 ◽  
pp. 160-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alam Khairul ◽  
Rahman Saidur ◽  
Altab Hossain ◽  
Mohammad Abdul Alim ◽  
Islam Mohammed Mahbubul

Helically coiled heat exchangers are globally used in various industrial applications for their high heat transfer performance and compact size. Nanofluids can provide excellent thermal performance of this type of heat exchangers. In the present study, the effect of different nanofluids on the heat transfer performance in a helically coiled heat exchanger is examined. Four different types of nanofluids CuO/water, Al2O3/water, SiO2/water, and ZnO/water with volume fractions 1 vol.% to 4 vol.% was used throughout this analysis and volume flow rate was remained constant at 3 LPM. Results show that the heat transfer coefficient is high for higher particle volume concentration of CuO/water, Al2O3/water and ZnO/water nanofluids, while the values of the friction factor and pressure drop significantly increase with the increase of nanoparticle volume concentration. On the contrary, low heat transfer coefficient was found in higher concentration of SiO2/water nanofluids. The highest enhancement of heat transfer coefficient and lowest friction factor occurred for CuO/water nanofluids among the four nanofluids. However, highest friction factor and lowest heat transfer coefficient were found for SiO2/water nanofluids. The results reveal that, CuO/water nanofluids indicate significant heat transfer performance for helically coiled heat exchanger systems though this nanofluids exhibits higher pressure drop.


Author(s):  
Jatuporn Kaew-On ◽  
Somchai Wongwises

The evaporation heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops of R-410A and R-134a flowing through a horizontal-aluminium rectangular multiport mini-channel having a hydraulic diameter of 3.48 mm are experimentally investigated. The test runs are done at refrigerant mass fluxes ranging between 200 and 400 kg/m2s. The heat fluxes are between 5 and 14.25 kW/m2, and refrigerant saturation temperatures are between 10 and 30 °C. The effects of the refrigerant vapour quality, mass flux, saturation temperature and imposed heat flux on the measured heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop are investigated. The experimental data show that in the same conditions, the heat transfer coefficients of R-410A are about 20–50% higher than those of R-134a, whereas the pressure drops of R-410A are around 50–100% lower than those of R-134a. The new correlations for the evaporation heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of R-410A and R-134a in a multiport mini-channel are proposed for practical applications.


Author(s):  
Haroun Ragueb ◽  
Kacem Mansouri

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the thermal response of the laminar non-Newtonian fluid flow in elliptical duct subjected to a third-kind boundary condition with a particular interest to a non-Newtonian nanofluid case. The effects of Biot number, aspect ratio and fluid flow behavior index on the heat transfer have been examined carefully.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the mathematical problem has been formulated in dimensionless form, and then the curvilinear elliptical coordinates transform is applied to transform the original elliptical shape of the duct to an equivalent rectangular numerical domain. This transformation has been adopted to overcome the inherent mathematical deficiency due to the dependence of the ellipsis contour on the variables x and y. The yielded problem has been successfully solved using the dynamic alternating direction implicit method. With the available temperature field, several parameters have been computed for the analysis purpose such as bulk temperature, Nusselt number and heat transfer coefficient.FindingsThe results showed that the use of elliptical duct enhances significantly the heat transfer coefficient and reduces the duct’s length needed to achieve the thermal equilibrium. For some cases, the reduction in the duct’s length can reach almost 50 per cent compared to the circular pipe. In addition, the analysis of the non-Newtonian nanofluid case showed that the addition of nanoparticles to the base fluid improves the heat transfer coefficient up to 25 per cent. The combination of using an elliptical duct and the addition of nanoparticles has a spectacular effect on the overall heat transfer coefficient with an enhancement of 50-70 per cent. From the engineering applications view, the results demonstrate the potential of elliptical duct in building light-weighted compact shell-and-tube heat exchangers.Originality/valueA complete investigation of the heat transfer of a fully developed laminar flow of power law fluids in elliptical ducts subject to the convective boundary condition with application to non-Newtonian nanofluids is addressed.


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