Study on Heat Transfer Performance and Parameter Improvement of Gravity-Assisted Heat Pipe Heat Transfer Unit for Waste Heat Recovery from Mine Return Air

Abstract

One of the effective methods for energy conservation and emission reduction in coal mines is to utilize waste heat recovery technology to recover mine return air waste heat. The gravity heat pipe is widely used in mine return air waste heat recovery due to its sustainable and economic advantages, but its heat transfer is a complex process influenced by multiple parameters. A single-tube heat transfer resistance model and a heat transfer calculation model based on enthalpy difference were established for the heat exchange tubes. Four typical application cases of a low flow rate and a low number of tube rows were selected, and their heat transfer characteristics were tested onsite and analyzed. It was found that there were problems such as a low overall heat transfer efficiency, a low fresh air outlet temperature, and a risk of icing in the final tube section. The effects of the gravity heat pipe parameters on the heat transfer performance were studied, such as the tube outer diameter, tube spacing, and the finned tube outer diameter. It was found that the air-resistant force of the heat exchanger increased with the increase of the tube spacing and the finned tube outer diameter, the heat transfer resistance increased with the increase of the tube spacing and the decrease of the finned tube outer diameter, and the heat transfer coefficient first increased and then decreased with the increase of the tube outer diameter. A configuration improvement scheme with a high flow rate and a high number of tube rows is proposed here. Taking Case 2 as an example, the temperature distribution of the heat tube before and after improvement is compared and analyzed. The results show that the heat transfer performance of the heat exchange system significantly improved. Without increasing the air resistance of the heat tube, the temperature of the return air outlet after improvement was reduced to 1.1 °C, 4.1 °C lower than that before improvement, further recovering the waste heat of the mine return air. The temperature of the condensate water film was greater than 0.5 °C, avoiding the icing problem of the condensate tube section, the fresh air outlet temperature reached 5.2 °C, an increase of 7.8 °C compared to that before improvement, and the overall heat transfer efficiency increased from 56.7% to 66%.