Heat transfer between horizontal finned tubes and a gas-solid fluidized bed

Abstract

The heat-transfer coefficients are measured between electrically heated V-thread tubes and square fluidized beds of alumina and silica sand. The effect of particle size, mass fluidizing velocity, V-thread pitch, and tube pitch on the heat transfer rate is investigated. One-dimensional and two-dimensional heat conduction models are developed for determining the temperature distribution in a V-thread fin. The models are used to calculate the corrected heat-transfer coefficients for the finned tubes. A correlation for the fin effectiveness factor is proposed and is found to be reliable to predict its value for finned tubes with geometry and orientation similar to that in the present investigation. The correlation in conjunction with the existing correlatins for the heat-transfer coefficient for smooth tubes is found, in general, to predict the coefficients for finned tubes immersed in a fluidized bed within + or - 25%.