Forced convection boiling heat transfer inside helically-coiled heat exchanger

Abstract

For decades, forced convection boiling heat transfer has been considered as one of the most efficient type in the heat transfer mechanism. It has been widely utilized in heat transfer equipment of various industries. Meanwhile, helically-coiled heat exchanger has been commonly utilized in numerous industrial applications. Thus, there is an interest to utilize forced convection boiling heat transfer in helically-coiled heat exchanger. Boiling phenomenon inside helically-coiled tube is more complex as compared to the straight tube due to the secondary flow induced by centrifugal force. This study investigates flow boiling heat transfer performance of water-vapor inside helically-coiled tube by using computational fluid dynamic approach. A Eulerian-Eulerian two-fluid model is used to capture interphase exchange forces and heat transfer between liquid and vapor phase. Wall boiling model is adopted to take into account the boiling condition in the vicinity of the wall. The developed model is then validated against the previously published experimental data. Good agreement for the outlet vapor quality and pressure drop between numerical study and experimental measured value is achieved. The result reveals that the boiling starts at the inner wall of the tube (φ=450°) due to the presence of secondary flow induced by coil curvature. The relationship between HTC and vapor quality along the helically-coiled tube are discussed and evaluated. This study serves as a guideline for future study on forced convection boiling heat transfer in the helically-coiled tube.