An experiment is carried out to investigate the characteristics of the augmentation of heat transfer and pressure drop by different strip-type inserts in small tube having an inside diameter of 2.0 mm. The effects of the imposed wall heat flux, mass flux, strip inserts with various configurations (heights, widths, pitches) on the measured augmentative heat transfer and pressure drop are examined in detail. In order to obtain insight into the fluid flow phenomena, flow visualization was also made to observe the detailed fluid flow characteristics of the present tubes inserted with strip-type inserts. In addition, comparisons are made with a plain tube having the same length, heat transfer area and experimental conditions. The measured heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops for this small pipe are also emphasized to compare with those for larger pipes. Furthermore, in order to compare results from the different configurations of strip-type inserts, several enhancement factors and performance ratios are defined to account for the effects of augmentation. Moreover, correlation equations for the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of the present study are proposed.
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