Thermal performance of heat exchanger tube inserted with curved-winglet tapes

Abstract

The paper deals with the effect of curved-winglet (CW) inserts on thermal and flow behaviors in a constant heat-fluxed tube. A straight tape is used to support the 45° CWs mounted repeatedly on both tape sides to generate two pairs of longitudinal counter-rotating vortices along the test tube in order to assist the chaotic flow mixing and to disrupt the boundary layer leading to faster rate of heat transfer. The airflow and heat transfer behaviors in the tube are examined for Reynolds number (Re) in the range of 4150–25,400. The curved-winglet tape (CWT) parameters involved are the winglet attack angle of 45°, three relative winglet heights (b/D = BR = 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3) and winglet pitches, (P/D = PR = 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0). The investigation reveals that the maximum thermal enhancement factor (TEF) of the CWT is about 1.62 at BR = 0.1 and PR = 1.0. For further improvement, the CWT at BR = 0.1 and PR = 1.0 is modified by punching the CW to be the perforated-curved-winglet tape (P-CWT) to reduce the pressure loss. The P-CWT characteristics include five different punched hole diameters (d = 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 mm). The experimental results show that TEF of all the P-CWTs is higher than that of the CWT and the maximum TEF of 1.76 higher than the CWT around 9% is found for d = 1.5 mm. To understand the flow pattern and heat transfer mechanism, a three-dimensional CFD investigation is also performed and for validation, the good agreement between numerical and experimental results is found. For experimental data, empirical correlations for Nu, f and TEF for the CWT and P-CWT inserts are also determined.