ANALYSIS OF HELICAL COIL HEAT EXCHANGERS

By V.Swapna Priya Guide R S Maurya

CONTENTS
Introduction - Outline of the project Literature Review Objective and Scope-Methodolgy Experimental Setup- Schematic of coil Experimental Details CFD Modelling Schematic of coil and Grid Independency Simulation parameters and Convergence Criterion CFD Modelling results Validation of results Parameters under investigation Conclusion

OUTLINE OF THE PROJECT

Theoretical analysis of a helically coiled heat exchanger considering fluid-fluid heat transfer

Heat transfer characteristics inside a helical coil for various boundary conditions are compared

An experiment is done and the heat transfer characteristics are compared with the CFD calculation results using the CFD package FLUENT 6.2

Finally a correlation is developed to calculate inner heat transfer coefficient of the helical coil

LITERATURE REVIEW
Single Phase Flow
S.No. 1 2 3 4 5 Name Dravid Yang Rennie & Raghavan Sillekins Lin & Ebadian Year 1971 1994 2006 1999 1998 Work Done Effect of secondary flow on laminar flow Nu = ( 0.65De + 0.76) Pr 0.175 Fully developed laminar convective heat transfer temperature gradient increased on one side of pipe wall and decreased on other. PHOENICS 3.3, CFD package. The flow in inner tube was the limiting factor for overall heat transfer coefficient Finite difference discretization and effect of buoyancy forces on heat transfer was considered 3-D Turbulent developing convective heat transfer in helical pipes. Effects of pitch, curvature ratio and Reynolds number were studied

Two - Phase Flow

S.No. 1 2 3 Name Kang Year 2006 Work Done Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of HFC-134a refrigerant in a helicoidal tube Nu = 2.3(Re * ) 0.94 Pr 0.4 Studied the effects of coil diameter , mass flux and heat flux in helical coil Effects of pulsation on transient convective heat transfer characteristics of steam water two phase flow in a helical coil

Berthoud & 2002 jayanti Guo 2002

OBJECTIVE AND SCOPE

Theoretical analysis of a helically coiled heat exchanger considering fluid-fluid heat transfer Heat transfer characteristics inside a helical coil for various boundary conditions are compared An experiment is done and the heat transfer characteristics are compared with the CFD calculation results using the CFD package FLUENT 6.2

METHODOLOGY Numerical Simulations are done for helical coil under various parameters and coil characteristics are studied

Experiment is done and effectiveness is obtained

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

F- Flow Element T- Temperature Element

SCHEMATIC OF COIL

DIMENSIONS OF HEAT EXCHANGER

3 turns helical coil Pipe dimensions: 10mm ID, 12.7mm OD Tank dimensions: 270mm ID, 330mm OD Pitch circle diameter: Pitch: 300mm 30mm

OBJECTIVE AND EXPERIMENT DETAILS

An experiment is done on a helical coil to study the characteristics of heat transfer and hence find LMTD and effectiveness Cold flow rate is made constant and temperatures are noted down by varying hot flow rate and air flow which is supplied externally. The temperature values are taken after reaching steady state. Experiments are carried out for five different flow rates through the coil and for three different values of temperature at the inlet of the helical pipe. Using temperature values and property values, overall heat transfer coefficient is found out from various standard correlations obtained from literatures and validated

CFD MODELLING

BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

Inlet
velocity (Water phase) 2.0 m/s (Air phase) 2.0 m/s Temperature 360K

Outlet
Temperature ( Back flow Temperature) 340K for both air and water phase

Wall (Mixture)

Temperature 300K

A constant wall temperature of 300K was specified as the boundary condition. Hot water at a temperature of 360K is entering the helical coil at the top and leaving at the bottom. In the first series of analysis, the properties of water were kept constant corresponding to fluid inlet temperature and pressure(360K and 1atm) Second analysis was done using the following temperature dependant properties

(T ) = 2.1897 e 11T 4 3.055 E 08T 3 + 1.6028e 05T 2 0.0037524T + 0.33158 (T ) = 1.5629 e 05T 3 + 0.011778T 2 3.0726T + 1227.8 (T ) 1.5362 e 08T 3 2.261e 05T 2 + 0.010879T 1.0294
C P (T ) = 1.1105e 05T 3 0.0031078T 2 1.478T 4631 .9

SCHEMATIC OF THE COIL USED FOR CFD MODELLING

INLET

OUTLET

GRID INDEPENDANCY

Structured grids created using GAMBIT 2.2 Optimum mesh chosen was 873,760 nodes, 4.516,224 faces and 1,915,833 volumes.

SIMULATION PARAMETERS AND CONVERGENCE CRITERON

Mass flow rate of cold water is kept at 0.2124 kg/s which is the same one used in experiment Hot inlet is at 360K and cold water inlet is at 300K

The realisable k- model is used in this analysis Linear discretization is used for pressure and turbulent kinetic energy and turbulent dissipation rate is used for momentum Second order up winding is used for energy equation A convergence criterion of 1.0e-05 is used for continuity and x,y,z velocities. For energy equation convergence criterion is 1.0e-08 and for k and is 1.0e-04

CFD MODELLING RESULTS

No heat transfer

With heat transfer

EFFECT OF VARIOUS PARAMETERS

The CFD simulations also extended to coils of various pitch circle diameters , tube pitches, and pipe diameters Different cases considered are PCD 200 P30 r10 PCD 300 P45 r10 PCD 300 P30 r10 PCD 300 P45 r20 PCD 300 P45 r05 PCD 300 P60 r10 PCD 400 P30 r10

Velocities of water-phase and air-phase are found to be almost same As pitch is increased, which leads to higher torsional effects, the horizontal symmetry is lost. In the beginning void fraction is highest at the inner side of the coil Also, the effect of pitch on void fraction is negligible at the beginning of the coil Pressure for air-phase shows local maximum towards the top of the coil. Its absolute value increases with increase in pitch.

VALIDATION OF RESULTS

Nu = 0.025 De 0.9112 Pr 0.41

PARAMETERS UNDER INVESTIGATION

The next step would be to develop a correlation applicable to all helical configurations using CFD analysis.

Also applicability of realisable k- model can be further investigated with staunch centrifugal and torsional effects in a helical coil.

CONCLUSION
An experimental setup is fabricated to study fluidfluid heat transfer in a helically coiled heat exchanger. Heat transfer characteristics of the heat exchanger with helical coil are also studied using the CFD code FLUENT.

The CFD predictions match reasonably well with the experimental results within experimental error limits. Based on the results a correlation was developed to calculate the inner heat transfer coefficient of the helical coil.

REFERENCES
Rennie, T.J. and Raghavan, V.G.S., 2005, Experimental studies of a double-pipe helical heat exchanger. Exp Thermal Fluid Sci, 29: 919-924. Rennie, T.J. and Raghavan, V.G.S., 2006a, Numerical studies of a double-pipe helical heat exchanger. Appl Thermal Eng, 26: 12661273. Xin, R.C., Awwad, A., Dong, Z.F. and Ebadin, M.A., 1996, An investigation and comparative study of the pressure drop in air-water two-phase flow in vertical helicoidal pipes. Int J Heat Mass Transfer, 39(4): 735743. Mori, Y. and Nakayama., 1967, Study on forced convective heat Transfer in curved pipes (3rd report). Int J Heat Mass Transfer, 10: 681-695. Mori, Y. and Nakayama., 1967, Study on forced convective heat Transfer in curved pipes (2nd report). Int J Heat Mass Transfer, 10: 37-59. Jaya Kumar, J.S, Mahajani, S.M ., 2008, Experimental and CFD Estimation of heat transfer in helically coiled heat exchangers Kang, H.J., Lin, C.X. and Ebadian, M.A., 2000, Condensation of R134a Flowing inside helicoidal pipe. Int J Heat Mass Transfer, 43: 25532564.

THANK YOU