Convective heat transfer analysis from helically coiled tube using CFD and Experimental methodology

Continuous research is going on exchanger design and development to fulfill the demand of power sector, refrigeration and air conditioning, chemical industry, nuclear sectors this lead to evolution of helical coil tube heat exchanger. Higher performance and compactness are primary requirements of heat and mass transfer devices hence researchers are endeavor towards heat enhancement techniques with reduction in size of heat exchanger. An attempt is made here to elaborate the effect of constructional feature on these parameters by experimentally and using CFD technique. From several studies of previous authors it has been noted that curvature ratio is most predominant factor in helically coiled tube that affect heat transfer characteristics, hence main objective behind present study is to investigate the effect different curvature ratio helical tubes on single phase fluid flow and convective heat transfer characteristics. CFD simulation and experimental analysis indicates that compactness i.e. surface area density increases with curvature ratios, it is observed that heat flux increase with increase curvature ratio but at the expense of pressure drop in helical tube.