Abstract
This paper presents the experimental and numerical investigation of flow distribution in the tubular space of cross-flow fin-and-tube heat exchanger. The tube bundle with two rows arranged in staggered formation is considered. A standard heat exchanged manifold, with inlet nozzle pipe located asymmetrically is considered. The outlet nozzle pipe is located in the middle of the outlet manifold. A developed experimental setup allows one to measure volumetric flow rate in heat exchanger tubes using the ultrasonic flowmeters. The measurement results are then compared with CFD simulation in ANSYS CFX code using the SSG Reynolds Stress turbulence model, and a good agreement is found for tube Re numbers varied from 1800 to 3100.
Highlights
Heat exchangers with finned elliptical tubes are widely used in industry, i.e., chemical, petrochemical, energy and automotive industries [1,2,3,4]
The elliptical tubes are used for tubular space of heat exchanger due to the lower pumping power needed from the intertubular space side [13,14]
The CFD simulation results and experimental results are in good agreement; slight discrepancies are observed in a region downstream the inlet nozzle pipe, where the CFD simulation predicts the slightly higher value of flow rate in tube no. 14, while the lower flow rates are calculated in tubes 12 and 13 nearby the inlet nozzle pipe
Summary
Heat exchangers with finned elliptical tubes are widely used in industry, i.e., chemical, petrochemical, energy and automotive industries [1,2,3,4]. Due to the compact shape of fin-and-tube heat exchangers, there may exist a problem of flow maldistribution to heat exchanger tubes [1,5,6,7,8]. This paper presents an experimental stand for investigation of flow maldistribution in tubular space of fin-and-tube heat exchanger. The experimental results are obtained for various flow rates, set at the inlet tu heat exchanger. It is assumed that the distance from one side of the manifold to the inlet nozzle pipe axis is 455 mm while 200 mm from the other side. Superstatic 749 flowmeters (7) are installed in all tubes at the distance of 300 mm before the outlet manifold. The flowmeters allow one to measure the volumetric flow rate in each tube of the heat exchanger. The measurement data is collected through the dedicated data acquisition system
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