Numerical investigations on a triple fluid heat exchanger with helical and sinusoidal coils

Abstract

A modification is made in the existing concentric heat exchanger design to enhance its heat duty. A standard concentric tube heat exchanger is modified by considering two inner tubes with a combination of helical and sinusoidal coils. Numerical studies are performed in this triple fluid heat exchanger to assess its thermal performance by taking into account mass flow rate, fluid temperatures, heat transfer, which are governed by fundamental heat transfer equations. Computational fluid dynamics simulation methodology together with local and element-by-element method is applied with a MatLab computer code. Hot water and milk fluids are used as working fluids in helical and sinusoidal coils, respectively. Cooling water is used as shell side fluid. The attainment of high heat-load-per-unit-area and high surface-area-to-volume ratio is used as optimizing parameter in the simulations. The helical coil provides an increase in heat transfer rate and overall heat transfer coefficient increases by a percentage 13% for varying hot fluid flow rates, when it is compared with the sinusoidal coil. The pressure drop for the helical coil increases, exponentially compared to the sinusoidal coil, thereby it shows a higher pumping power for the helical coil.