Indian Journal of Chemical Technology

Vol. 1, September 1994. pp. 305-307

Short Communication

Cooling of a viscous liquid using a half-coil

jacket
Y Pydisetty & N S Jayakumar
Department of Chemical Engineering, D D Institute of
Technology, Nadiad 387 001, India

Cooling of a hot viscous glycerine liquid using water as coolant flowing through a half-coil jacket has
been studied experimentally in a batch stirred system
to investigate the individual as well as the overall
time-variant heat transfer coefficients.
In an indirect heat transfer system jackets or coils
are used for heating! cooling or temperature control of a chemical reaction. Coils are more suitable than jackets since coil geometry offers higher
heat transfer rates and ensure close temperature
control. There are some reports on heat transfer
in a limpet coil, also known as half-coil'". An
equation has been derived for heat transfer efficiency of a limpet coil comparing it with a jacketed vessel for both unsteady state I and steady
state! conditions. The present experiment has
been carried out using a half-coil jacket since the
data available in such a unit is little.
The experimental set-up and coil geometry
used in the present study are shown in Fig. 1,
while Table 1 shows the experimental conditions.
The experiments were conducted by varying the

AsbHtos
Coolant out
Thermocole
Insulation
Coolant

flow rate of the cooling water and the initial temperature of hot glycerine. The transient temperature data on the vessel (Th) as well as on the coil
side (~) are shown in Fig. 2.
Results and discussion-The temperature vs
time data for fixed time intervals obtained from
Fig. 2 have been used to calculate the corresponding logarithmic mean temperature difference, shown in Table 2. The individual and overall heat transfer coefficients have been calculated
from heat balances assuming negligible heat losses
from the vessel lid, bottom and side, uniform temperature throughout the bath inside the vessel,
steady flow of coolant throughout the experiment
and constant wall temperature throughout the
wall thickness. Heat balance on bath side gives:

dJ;,
- VPh Cph-=

hi Ai (~T

dt

... (1)

)In

Heat balance on coil side gives:

qpcCpc(~-

~i)=hoAo(AT)ln

... (2)

hi, obtained from Eq. (1) is corrected

ity by wall temperature

Table I-Experimental

for viscoscalculations. The logarith-

conditions of the present study

Volume of hot glycerine, V

Flow rate of cooling water, qx 106
Initial temperature of hot glycerine,
Thickness of the vessel, Xw
Length ofthe limpet coil, L

:400 x 10 - 6 m3
1.67-6.00 m3/s
: 45-96C
: 0.0015 m
: 1.525 m
:

Thi

lid

If coil
Teflon stirrer

in

laD I"'1
Motor control
[-I

[-2 fl
[-)

Speed control

d .10414mm

T
P
L

Dc

Oi

Dc-aa-omm
OI~79-8mm

"

H~aO-Omm

l7

P"200mm
11
0

Coil geometry

Fig. 1- Experimental set-up and coil geometry

[-8

Fig. 2-Experimental

transient temperature data

306

INDIAN J. CHEM. TECHNOL.,

1994

Table 2-ResuIts on heat transfer film coefficients

q=6.0x 1O-6m3/s; Thi=64.0C; T.:i=27.0C; T,.=32.0C

E-l
t. S

(~nn' C

t., C

h;,W/m2K

h", W/m2 K

Uoe, W/m2 K

120
240

58.9
53.0
47.7

204.l3
197.97
169.58

199.30
171.95

114.40

360

47.73
38.89
32.29

480
600

27.60
23.50

45.1
43.0

167.89
174.68

Table 3-Comparison

\04.02

143.36
111.85

89.20
76.55
64.34

87.57

of experimental and predicted Nusselt number

E,%

De

Nllc

NlIp

435.00
221.48

0.914
1.294

77.40

125.64

1.582

0.873
1.223
1.624

E-4
E-5

89.62
126.55
156.03
\05.92
74.33

386.65
389.87

1.090
0.765

0.926
0.922

76.50
711.40

E-6
E-7

94.68
116.18

274.03
236.78

0.975
1.190

1.099
1.183

77.10
76.10

Expt. No.

U"c'

E-1
E-2
E-3

W/m2

mic mean temperature

given by

difference

(~T)ln=(1h-

7;,)

7;,;)-(1h-

In (1h-

SEPTEMBER

in Eq. (2)

IS

% deviation

4.5
5.5
- 2.7

75.70
74.90

15.0
- 20.5
- 12.7
0.6

The corrected inside heat transfer film coefficient,

hi is given as
hi=hj(flh1flhw)o.14

... (3)

7;,;)

1h-7;,

The properties p; and Cpc are taken' at the mean

temperature of 4j and maximum 4 for any experiment. The properties Ph and Cph are taken' at
the bath temperature Th at any time, t. In the
present study, as a viscous liquid was used inside
the vessel, the wall temperature was found to be
different from the bath temperature. Hence, the
inside heat transfer film coefficient is modified for
viscosity correction by multiplying with a factor of
(flhl flhw)O.14. The transport property, flhw is taken'
at the wall temperature,
T; which is obtained
from the heat balance between the wall and hot
liquid, given as

... (6)

The experimental overall heat transfer coefficient

based on outside area, Uoe is calculated using the
following equation
1
1
x,
1
--=-+---+-UoeAo
hi Ai . KwAw hoAo

...(7)

A:.

where
is the logarithmic mean area of the wall.
Table 2 shows the values of hi, ho and U oe- As the
present work involves batch heat transfer study,
the time-averaged experimental overall heat transfer coefficient, [Joe is calculated for each experiment as follows
M

I ,uoetJ (~t)J
-

J=1

... (8)

Uoe = ~M""----

ItJ(~t)J
... (4)

For egimation of wall temperature, it is assumed

that Aw equals to Ao. Rearranging the terms in
Eq. (4) the wall temperature, T; is obtained as
( h;Xw) Th

x;

In all the above calculations an equivalent diameter for coil side, D eq has been defined using hydraulic mean radius, rH as follows

o; = 4rH =

+(~) t,

o.n

J-1

'" (5)

Experimental
number as

(ll: 2)

... (9)

Nusselt number is related to Dean

Nu= 18.2 (Det.5

... (10)

307

SHORT COMMUNICATION

where Dean number, Deis defined as

(%:t

Nomenclature

De=(De~cV)

... (11)

Ai
A'
Ao

= inside heat transfer area, m2

= cross-sectional

area of the limpet, m 2

= heat transfer area on coil side, m?

= specific heat of the coolant, J/kg K

Cph = specific heat of the hot liquid, J/kg K
hi
= inside film heat transfer coefficient at any time, t,
W/m2K
hu = outside film heat transfer coefficient at any time, t,
W/m2K
K = thermal conductivity of the coolant, W/m K
K; = thermal conductivity of the glass wall, W/m K
IJ
= time corresponding to Jth reading, s
(~/h = time interval between Jth and J- 1 th readings, s
T.
= ambient temperature, C
Tci
= feed temperature of the coolant, C
v
= average velocity of the coolant (q/A"), m1s
flh
= viscosity of the hot liquid at the bath temperature
kg/
ms
o; = density of the coolant, kg/rn?
Ph = density of the hot liquid, kg/m"
NUe = experimental Nusselt number ([Joe Dei K)
Nu; = predicted Nusselt number (Eq. (10))
Cpc

The power for Dean number in Eq. (10) is obtained from a plot of NUe versus De. Table 3
shows the values of De, [Joe, NUe and Nup which
indicates that the experimental and predicted
Nusselt number are in good agreement with a
standard deviation of 0.104 and a variance of
0.0108. Moreover, the percentage deviation of
each experiment is reported in Table 3. The relative heat transfer efficiency of half-coil jacket
compared to jacketed vessel, E in the present
study is obtained' using the following equation'

E=!
3

(2+ tanhmLmL)

... (12)

where m2 = [Jol x;
The values of the efficiency, E (Eq. (12)) are reported in Table 3 with an average efficiency of
77%.
Conclusions-Cooling
of a viscous liquid has
been studied experimentally. The viscosity correction for inside heat transfer film coefficient has
been done using the calculated wall temperature.
The experimental Nusselt number is related to
Dean number as
Nu= 18.2 {De)-O.5

References
1 Biswas D K & Panthaki K M, Chem Age India, 28 (1977)
733.
2 Joshi M V, Process equipment design, 1st ed (The Macmillan Company of India Ltd, New Delhi), 1976,222.
3 Kneale M, Trans Inst Chem Eng, 47 (1969) 1279.
4 Marzi Maurizio, Ital Chem Process, 17(5) (1989) 43; Chem
Abstr,111 (1989) 156662p.
5 Pavlov K F, Rornankov P G & Noskov A A, Examples and
problems to the course of unit operations of chemical engineering(Mir Publishers, Moscow), 1979, 548, 571.