CFD Analysis of Helical Coil Finned Tube Heat Exchanger for Helium Liquefaction Plant

Heat exchanger is the most crucial component in cryogenic processes, for improving efficiency and decreasing cost of the whole plant. This thesis focuses on the analysis of flow of fluid through a helical coil tube fin type heat exchanger through CFD software. Also on the enhancement in convective heat transfer in between the fluid and the surrounding surface in these helical coils which has been a major topic of study as reported by many researchers. In this study, an attempt has been made to study the counter flow of inner hot fluid flow and outer cold fluid flow, which are separated by copper surface in a helical coil heat exchanger. The temperature contours, velocity vectors, total pressure contours, total heat dissipation rate from the wall of the tube were calculated and plotted using CFD. The materials for the study were decided to be copper for helical tube and stainless steel for shells due to their better conducting properties and fluid taken was helium.