Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ESDA08
July 7-9, 2008, Haifa, Israel
1
Post Doctoral Fellow
2
Corresponding author. Tel.: +972-4-8293807; Fax: +972-4-8121604.
E-mail address: levyy@aerodyne.technion.ac.il (Y. Levy)
1.1 Motivation
Many investigators have proposed different correlations based
on their experimental results [5-9]. But the practical usage of
such correlations is limited because of the variety of parameters [a] [b] [c]
that can influence Nusselt number and friction factor. Most of Figure 1. Fin arrangement in different types of heat
the correlations have been developed with either limited exchangers,
databases, or are geometry specific. Moreover since most of (a) Internally Finned Pipe
the experimental test sections are small in length (typically less (b) Externally Finned Pipe
than 1m), the temp erature variation within these test sections is (c) Internally and Externally Finned Double Pipe
low and therefore the resulting correlations do not take into Heat Exchanger
account the variation of fluid properties along the test section.
However, when it comes to practical applications of such heat 2. LITERATURE SURVEY
exchangers, where a large amount of heat is to be extracted, and As far as geometry of the internal fins is concerned, most
length of the heat exchanger can be quite large. Hence, there internal fins are strips with surfaces positioned longitudinally
may be a substantial change in the fluid temperature along the along the tube axis. Many investigations, both experimental
tube length and therefore variation of fluid properties can and numerical, have been conducted on different kinds of
significantly affect the performance predictions. An additional internally finned tubes using a variety of fluids (air, water, oil,
motivation for carrying out the present research work is the fact ethylene, etc) [5-15]. These studies examined the overall
that in the literature there is information on either internally performance in terms of circumferentially averaged friction
finned tubes or externally finned tubes, but there is no factors and heat transfer coefficients and examined the effects
published work on double pipe heat exchangers with both of parameters like: number of fins, fin height, fin width, helix
internal and external fins. Because of the above-mentioned angle, etc. Because of the wide range of fin geometries and
limitations, the objective of the current research is to develop a Reynolds numbers covered in their experiments, Jensen and
physical model for evaluating heat transfer and frictional loss Vlankancic [9] suggested different governing processes
for an internally and / or externally finned double pipe heat between ‘‘tall fin’’ and ‘‘micro-fin’’ tubes. While “tall fins” (as
exchanger, which can be applied in a wide range of operating investigated in this paper), are used in industrial furnace,
conditions of practical importance. thermal power plants, etc, the ‘‘micro-fins’’ are generally used
An additional motivation for present research is that most for cooling in electronic equipments. Most of the investigators
of the numerical investigations that have been carried out for obtained an increase in the Nusselt numbers from 15-180% as
finned pipe heat exchangers have used Computation Fluids compared to the smooth tube. However this increase in heat
Dynamics with various turbulence models for studying the flow transfer is counterbalanced by an increase in friction factor by
pattern inside the heat exchanger [10, 11]. Even though such 50-500 % [9].
techniques are quite accurate and give an in-depth physical Soliman et al. [18] analyzed fully developed laminar flow,
understanding of the problem, they are very time consuming, while accounting for conduction in the tube wall and fins but
and hence cannot be used to evaluate performance of the keeping the outer surface of tube at a constant temperature. A
complete heat exchanger, especially for industrial applications. comprehensive experimental and numerical investigation of
Also such techniques can not be used for optimization exercises laminar flow was performed by Shome and Jensen [19].
where a number of iterations are required before an optimum Rectangular fins were implicitly assumed in all these studies.
and external fins, therefore the results obtained from the 150
0.25
0.002
FF1O_AVG,
Simulation
0.001 Braga&Sboya
FF1O_BR,
0.2
0
1000 10000 100000 1000000
ReF1
fh 0.15
Figure 6. Comparison of friction factor obtained from the
simulations with the Carnavos correlation
0.1
4000
Series1
Simulation 0.05
3500
Series2
Carnavos
3000
0
Ploss (Pa)
Reh
2000
500 2500
Simulation
PRLOSS,
0
1000 10000 100000 1000000 Braga & Sboya
PRLF_BR,
ReF1 2000
1000
4.2 Heat Exchanger with External Fins only
In this case, only external fins within the annular passage 500
are considered for enhancement of the heat transfer (the internal
fins within the core pipe are neglected in this analysis).
Performance of heat exchanger with similar conditions as used 0
0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000
by Braga and Saboya [30], the total pressure drop and heat Reh
transfer coefficient across the annulus, evaluated by the earlier
Figure 9. Comparison between the numerically obtained loss
described methodology, is shown in Figure 8 and Figure 9
in heat exchanger with experimental correlations of Braga &
respectively. It is seen that unlike in the case for internal fins,
Saboya
TF1 (K)
the overall comparison is good with the maximum error being
less than 5 %
485
100
480
80
475
60 0 5
0.25 10
0.5 15
0.75 1.020
Length (m)
Nuh
outer fins, with both inner and outer fins) is shown in Figure 11.
0
It is seen from Fig. 11 that the effectiveness of only inner fins or 0 5 10 15 20 25
only outer fins in transferring heat from the core fluid to the
Number of Fins
annular fluid is almost the same. Therefore maximum heat is
transferred in the case when there are both external and internal
Figure 12: Variation of Nusselt number with external and
fins.
internal fins
The effect of fin conductance and fin height on the flow 6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Nusselt number (for both core and annular flow) is shown in The authors are thankful to the Ministry of Higher Education,
Figure 14. The Nusselt number increases with increase in fin Govt. of Israel and Israel science Foundation (ISF) for
conductance and reduces with increase in fin height, as supporting the research.
expected. However increase in the fin height results in an
increase in the overall heat transfer area and hence resulting in 7. NOMENCLATURE
enhancement of the overall heat transfer rate. A area [m2]
Bi Biot number [-]
Cp specific heat at constant pressure [J/kg-K]
120 dA area of elemental strip [m2]
D diameter of duct [m]
100
Dh hydraulic diameter [m]
NU1I_100
Inner Fin (k =100) dx width of elemental strip [m]
NU1O_100
Outer Fin (k = 100) f friction factor [-]
80
NU1I,
Inner Fin (k =10)
h convective heat transfer coefficient [W/m2-K]
NU1O,
Outer Fin (k = 10)
k thermal conductivity
Nu
60
KT thermal conductivity of fluid [W/m-K]
L length [m]
40
M Mach Number [-]
m& mass flow rate [kg/s]
20
N number of elements [-]
Nu Nusselt Number [-]
0
P pressure [Pa]
0 5 10 15 20 25
Pr Prandtl number [-]
Fin Height (mm)
Q total enthalpy [J]
Figure 14: Variation of Nusselt number with fins conductance q& heat transfer rate [W]
and fin height
R gas constant of air [= 287 J/kg K]
Re Reynolds Number [-]
t thickness [m]
5. CONCLUSIONS
T temperature [K]
A new and fast calculation procedure / methodology is
V velocity [m/s]
described to evaluate performance of a double pipe heat
Greek scripts
exchanger with internal and / or external fins. The methodology
µ dynamic viscosity [Pa-s]
uses well-known and established correlations for the flow in
ρ density [kg/m3]
smooth tubes and for flow over flat plates and hence is not