Thermal performance analysis of coils versus longitudinal C-shaped tubes: validity of the turbulent correlations

Abstract

Compared to helically coiled tube exchangers (HCTs), longitudinally curved tube exchangers (LCTs) have received little attention from scientists over the past decade, leading to a lack of correlations estimating the Nusselt number and friction factor. In view of recent studies promoting the use of LCTs (waved, C-shaped or sinusoidal) in linear solar concentrating systems, this study examines whether or not correlations of and developed explicitly for HCTs could be applied to LCTs. A (SST) turbulent model has been run on HCTs and validated by experimental correlations from the literature. With an amplitude ratio equal to unity (waviness amplitude to the curvature radius ratio) and the same curvature ratio (tube radius to the curvature radius ratio), LCTs and HCTs are geometrically similar. For these similar configurations, the numerical results of over the Reynolds number range overlap almost perfectly, which is not for. Over the LTC amplitude ratio range, no significant change in the mean was reported, with a max relative error of 3.98%, whereas was highly dependent on it. One key finding: with a similar curvature ratio, correlations of the mean developed previously for HCTs could be used for LCTs, which is not valid for the mean.