Numerical investigation of vertical helically coiled tube heat exchangers thermal performance

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is thermal performance assessment of vertical helically coiled tube heat exchangers, at various shell-side mass flow rates, various coil-to-tube diameter ratios, and different dimensionless coil pitches. A particular difference of this study with other studies performed on similar configurations is the boundary conditions for the helical coil. While most studies focus on simplified thermal conditions like constant wall temperature or constant heat flux on the coil surface, in the present study a conjugate thermal boundary condition for the tube wall fluid-to-fluid heat transfer mechanism, is considered. The assessment of the thermal performance is conducted using numerical solution based on control volume method. The calculations is performed for steady-state conditions and three-dimensional system.