Fluid flow and heat transfer enhancement in wings with combined solid ring twisted tape inserts circular heat exchanger tube

Abstract

Experimental examination is carried out to study the turbulent heat transfer and fluid-flow characteristics in circular heat exchanger tube using combined wing with solid ring twisted tape inserts. A series of experiments has been performed with the range of Reynolds number varied from 3000 to 21000, number of twisted taped inserts, NTT, varied from 1.0 to 4.0 with constant value of other twisted tape parameters such as rings pitch ratio, dR /DT = 1.0, wing pitch ratio, PW /WT = = 3.0, and wing depth ratio, Wd /WT = 1.67. Based on the examined, turbulent heat transfer and fluid-flow in wing with combined solid ring twisted tape inserts results are compared with plain circular tube under same operating conditions. The experimental results show that the heat transfer is increased around 5.66 times than plane circular heat exchanger tube. The thermal and hydrodynamic performance parameter based on equal pumping power, ?p, was found to be highest for NTT = 3.0. The optimum value of thermal and hydrodynamic performance has been found to be 2.74 for Reynolds mumber of 3000 within the range of the parameters investigated. Multiple wings with solid rings twisted tape inserts have been also shown to be thermally as well as hydraulically better in comparison to other similar twisted tape insert geometries.