A study on the thermal contact conductance in fin–tube heat exchangers with 7 mm tube

The thermal contact resistance has been frequently neglected in the process of design of heat exchangers because of the difficulty of measurement and the lack of accurate data. However, the thermal contact resistance is one of principal parameters in heat transfer mechanism of fin–tube heat exchangers. The objective of the present study is to investigate new factors such as fin types and manufacturing types of the tube affecting the thermal contact conductance and to find a correlation between the thermal contact conductance and the effective factors in fin–tube heat exchangers with 7 mm tube. The thermal contact conductances in the 22 heat exchangers with 7 mm tube have been investigated through the experimental–numerical method. A numerical scheme has been employed to calculate the thermal contact conductance and the portion of thermal resistances using the experimental data. As a result, the thermal contact conductance has been evaluated quantitatively, and a new correlation including the influence of new factors such as fin types and manufacturing types of the tube has been developed in the fin–tube heat exchanger with 7 mm tube. Also, the portion of each thermal resistance has been evaluated in each case.     

Mathematical Model for Predicting the Heat Transfer Characteristics of a Helical-Coiled,Crimped, Spiral,Finned-Tube Heat Exchanger

This paper is a continuation of the authors’ previous work. Theoretical and experimental studies of the heat transfer characteristics of a helical-coiled, crimped, spiral, finned-tube heat exchanger in dry surface conditions are presented. The test section is a helical-coiled, finned-tube heat exchanger. The coil unit is composed of four concentric helical-coiled tubes of different diameters. All tubes are constructed by bending straight copper tube into seven layers of helical coil. Aluminum crimped spiral fins, with an outer diameter of 28.25 mm and a thickness of 0.5 mm, are connected around the tube. Hot water is used as a working fluid for the tube side, while ambient air is used for the shell side. The test runs are done at air mass flow rates ranging between 0.04 and 0.13 kg/s. The water mass flow rates are between 0.2 and 0.4 kg/s. The water temperatures are between 40 and 50°C. A mathematical model is developed and the simulation results show reasonable agreement with the experimental data.     

两种三维双侧强化管管外R245fa凝结换热的实验对比

为研究环保制冷剂R245fa在水平强化管外凝结换热特性及表面结构对管内外换热性能的影响,分别对三维齿结构低肋管(A管)和斜翅管(B管)进行管外凝结换热实验。在数据处理方法上,采用Wilson-Gnielinski图解法获得管内水侧对流换热系数及其计算关联式,再利用热阻分离法获得管外凝结换热系数。实验结果分析得出A管和B管的管内换热系数强化倍率分别为2.04和2.98,管外强化倍率分别为1.77～1.94,1.87～2.14,B管管内外换热性能都优于A管,造成两种强化管内外换热性能差异的主要因素是强化管内的螺纹高度和管外翅化比。     

Calculation of the Heat Transfer Coefficient for Laminar Flow in Pipes in Practical Engineering Applications

ABSTRACT

Paper presents an analysis of existing correlations for laminar liquid flow and heat transfer in tubes based on the published theoretical research and experimental data. Considering the relatively large deviation of existing correlations from the experimental data, the novel correlation for laminar heat transfer in tubes is proposed. The new correlation covers large range of tube diameters ranging from micro-scale level 125.4 µm to conventional diameter 20.8 mm, Graetz numbers up to 6500 and fluid to wall viscosity ratio 0.0048–11.7. Correlation ratio of the newly proposed relationship for a total number of 390 experimental runs is 96.6% and standard deviation is 16.2%. Moreover, correlation covers both the hydraulically and thermally undeveloped and developed flows and all cases of boundary conditions that can be met in industrial applications.     

Experimental Study on the Heat Transfer Characteristics of an Evaporating Falling Film on a Horizontal Plain Tube

In this paper, an experimental investigation on the heat transfer of saturated water falling film on a single horizontal plain tube is presented. The water film falling on the outside of the tube has been heated by the condensing steam flowing in the tube, and the heat transfer coefficient between the water film and the steam has been measured. Experiments were performed at saturation temperatures of liquid film and steam as 58°C and 61°C, and 61°C and 65°C, a tube pitch of 57.16 mm, heat fluxes from 10 to 50 kW m^-2, and film flow rate per unit of length of the tube up to 0.12 kg m^?1 s^?1. Brass plain tubes with external diameters of 25.4 mm and lengths of 950 mm were used in the experiments. The experimental results show that the heat transfer coefficient increases with the increasing film flow rate and heat flux, and the quality of vapor has an obvious influence on the heat transfer performance of falling film evaporation. The coupling of condensation and evaporation heat transfer inside and outside the tube is investigated qualitatively in this paper.     

CO2不同螺纹管管外强化换热的实验研究

通过对CO2的物理特性及水平光管与不同螺纹管管外沸腾换热进行实验研究,得出了换热系数随蒸发压力和热流密度的变化关系。拟合得出CO2在蒸发压力的范围为2.6~3.6MPa、热流密度为10~50 kW.m-2的换热关联式h=A.qn。与Cooper预测值的偏差在±15%之内,与Ribatski关联式预测值的偏差在±7%之内,与Ye实验关联式预测值的偏差在±9%之内。在CO2在光管管外沸腾换热的基础上进一步研究其在螺纹管管外沸腾对换热的强化效果,为CO2强化换热进一步发展提供依据,具有一定工程实践意义。     

Boiling Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of a Refrigerant Flowing Vertically Upward in Small Rectangular and Triangular Tubes

In the present study, experiments were performed to examine the characteristics of flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop of a refrigerant R410A flowing vertically upward in small copper rectangular and triangular tubes with hydraulic diameters of 1.04 and 0.88 mm, respectively, for the development of a high-performance heat exchanger using small tubes or minichannels for air-conditioning systems. Their characteristics were clarified by comparing the previous experimental data of the small circular tube (1.00 mm internal diameter). In the rectangular and triangular tubes, the pressure drop was found to be slightly lower and the heat transfer was much better than in the circular tube.     

Performance evaluation of flattened tube in boiling heat transfer enhancement and its effect on pressure drop

An experimental investigation has been carried out to study heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of R-134a flow boiling inside a horizontal plain tube and different flattened tubes. Round copper tubes with an inner diameter of 8.7 mm were flattened into an oblong shape with an internal height of 6.6 mm, 5.5 mm, 3.8 mm, and 2.8 mm. The test apparatus was basically a vapor compression refrigeration system equipped with all necessary measuring instruments. Analysis of the collected data showed that, by flattening the round tube, the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop increased simultaneously. The performance of these tubes from the point of view of heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop increasing were evaluated. It was concluded that, the tube with an internal height of 5.5 mm has the best performance compared with the other flattened tubes. Finally, based on the present experimental pressure drop data, a correlation was developed to estimate the pressure drop in flattened tubes. This correlation predicts the experimental data of the present study within an error band of ± 20%.     

Performance investigation of plain and finned tube evaporatively cooled heat exchangers

The performance of two evaporatively cooled heat exchangers is investigated under similar operating conditions of air flow rates and inlet hot water temperatures. The heat exchangers are plain and plate-finned circular tube types which occupy the same volume. Spray water, which is circulated in a closed circuit, is injected onto the exposed surfaces of the tubes and fins. The contact between air and spray water results in evaporative heat transfer. The tubes are copper, 10 mm o.d. The finned configuration is constructed by introducing 0.5 mm thick copper plates between the tubes, with a total area ratio of four. A substantial increase in heat transfer takes place for the plate-finned tubes. The increase is 92–140% for air velocities from 1.66 to 3.57 m s⁻¹. A model is used to calculate the thermal performance of the plain and finned tubes assuming a constant spray water temperature in the heat exchanger. The wet-finned surfaces show low fin efficiency compared with dry surfaces. An energy index defined as the ratio of volumetric thermal conductance to air pressure drop per unit length is found to be close for the two heat exchangers. This reveals higher thermal utilisation of the occupied volume by the finned tubes with the same energy index.     

Experimental Study on the Heat and Mass Transfer of Teflon-Coated Tubes for the Latent Heat Recovery

Abstract

The heat and mass transfer on stainless steel and Teflon-coated tube surfaces in a steam-air mixture flow were experimentally studied to obtain design data for a heat exchanger to be used in the latent heat recovery from flue gases. The test section consisted of three horizontal tubes with a pitch of 67 mm. The diameter of the tubes was 25.4 mm, and the tube wall thickness was 1.2 mm. The steam-air mixture flowed vertically from top to bottom. The Teflon coating degraded the overall heat transfer coefficient by 19%, as compared to the bare stainless steel tube. The degradation of the overall heat transfer coefficient of the Teflon-coated tube comes from the additional heat transfer resistance due to Teflon coating. Its magnitude on heat transfer resistance is comparable to the in-tube heat transfer resistance. Nusselt and Sherwood numbers of Teflon-coated surfaces have a different trend compared to bare stainless steel surface in the higher Reynolds number of our test. The higher contact angle of the condensate on the Teflon-coated surface, about 25°, is the reason for the kind of trend observed.     

Effects of surface roughness and tube materials on the filmwise condensation heat transfer coefficient at low heat transfer rates

The laminar filmwise condensation heat transfer coefficient on the horizontal tubes of copper and stainless steel was investigated. The outside diameter of the tubes was 15.88 mm, and the tube thickness ranged from 1.07 to 1.6 mm. The polished stainless steel tube had an RMS surface roughness of 0.37 μm, and commercial stainless steel tubes had maximum surface roughness of 15 μm. The tests were conducted at saturation temperatures of 20 and 30 °C, and liquid wall subcoolings from 0.4 to 2.1 °C. The measured condensation heat transfer coefficients were significantly lower than the predicted data by the Nusselt analysis when the ratio of the condensate liquid film thickness to the surface roughness, δ / R_p–v, was relatively low. When the condensate liquid film was very thin, tube material affected the condensation heat transfer coefficient in the filmwise condensation.     

Asymmetrical Non-Uniform Heat Flux Distributions For Laminar Flow Heat Transfer With Mixed Convection In a Horizontal Circular Tube

Non-symmetric heat flux distributions in terms of gravity in solar collector tubes influence buoyancy-driven secondary flow which has an impact on the associated heat transfer and pressure drop performance. In this study the influence of the asymmetry angle (0°, 20°, 30° and 40°) with regard to gravity for non-uniform heat flux boundaries in a horizontal circular tube was investigated numerically. A stainless steel tube with an inner diameter of 62.68 mm, a wall thickness of 5.16 mm, and a length of 10 m was considered for water inlet temperatures ranging from 290 K to 360 K and inlet Reynolds numbers ranging from 130 to 2000. Conjugate heat transfer was modelled for different sinusoidal type outer surface heat flux distributions with a base-level incident heat flux intensity of 7.1 kW/m². It was found that average internal heat transfer coefficients increased with the circumferential span of the heat flux distribution. Average internal and axial local heat transfer coefficients and overall friction factors were at their highest for symmetrical heat flux cases (gravity at 0º) and lower for asymmetric cases. The internal heat transfer coefficients also increased with the inlet fluid temperature and decreased with an increase in the external heat loss transfer coefficient. Friction factors decreased with an increase in fluid inlet temperature or an increase in the external heat loss transfer coefficients of the tube model.     

An experimental investigation of the effect of longitudinal fin orientation on heat transfer in membrane water wall tubes in a circulating fluidized bed

Experiments were conducted in a cold model circulating fluidized bed having riser cross-sectional area of 100 mm × 100 mm, height of 4.8 m, bed temperature of 75 °C and superficial velocity of 8 m s^?1. Local sand having average diameter of 231 μm was used as bed material. The experiments were conducted for three tube configurations: membrane tube, membrane tube with a longitudinal fin at the tube crest and membrane tube with two longitudinal fins at 45° on both sides of the tube crest. The results show that membrane tubes with one and two longitudinal fins have higher heat transfer than membrane tubes and the heat is mainly transferred in the combination portion of tube and membrane fins. In addition, the membrane tube has the highest heat transfer coefficient.     

Effect of operating parameters on heat transfer in the lean phase region of a CFB riser column

The radial variation of the heat transfer coefficient across the bed width, including the effect of fins and fin shapes (surface roughness), on the heat transfer characteristics in the lean phase region of a circulating fluidized bed riser column are investigated. Three test sections (bare horizontal tube, V-fin tube and square fin tube) are employed for the investigation. The experimental unit consists of a riser column of 102×102 mm in bed cross-section, 5·25 m in height with a return leg of the same dimensions, and both made up of plexiglas columns. For the same operating conditions, the provision of fins results in a drop in heat transfer coefficient, but increases total heat transfer owing to increased surface area. The present experimental data are compared with published literature and good agreement has been observed. The experimental data also corresponds to the two-zone hydrodynamics (i.e. the core–annulus structure) of a circulating fluidized bed. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effect of Tube Flattening on Flow Boiling Heat Transfer Enhancement

The present study investigated the effect of smooth tube flattening on heat transfer enhancement in an evaporator. The tubes with internal diameter of 8.7 mm were flattened into an oblong shape with different inside heights. The test setup was basically a vapor compression refrigeration system equipped with all necessary measuring instruments. Refrigerant R-134a flowing inside the tube was heated by an electrical coil heater wrapped around it. The ranges of mass velocities were from 74 to 106 kg/m²-s and vapor quality varied from 25% to 95%. Analysis of the collected data indicated that the heat transfer coefficient elevates by increasing the mass velocity and vapor quality in flattened tubes just like the round tube. The flow boiling heat transfer coefficient increases when the flattened tube is used instead of the round tube. The highest heat transfer coefficient enhancement of 172% was achieved for the tube with the lowest inside height at mass velocity of 106 kg/m²-s and vapor quality of 85%. Finally, based on the present experimental results, a correlation was developed to predict the heat transfer coefficient in flattened tubes.     

Heat transfer coefficients under dry- and wet-surface conditions for a spirally coiled finned tube heat exchanger

In the present study, the average tube-side and air-side heat transfer coefficients in a spirally coiled finned tube heat exchanger under dry- and wet-surface conditions are experimentally investigated. The test section is a spiral-coil heat exchanger, which consists of six layers of concentric spirally coiled tube. Each tube is fabricated by bending a 9.6-mm outside diameter straight copper tube into a spiral coil of four turns. Aluminium fins with thickness 0.6 mm and outside diameter 28.4 mm are placed helically around the tube. The chilled water and the hot air are used as working fluids. The test runs are done at the air and water mass flow rates ranging between 0.02 and 0.2 kg/s and between 0.04 and 0.25 kg/s, respectively. The inlet-air and -water temperatures are between 35 and 60 °C and between 10 and 35 °C, respectively. The effects of the inlet conditions of both working fluids flowing through the heat exchanger on the heat transfer coefficients are discussed. New correlations based on the data gathered during this work for predicting the tube-side and air-side heat transfer coefficients for the spirally coiled finned tube heat exchanger are proposed.     

Effect of electroplating on the thermal conductance of fin–tube interface

This paper presents the experimental results of thermal contact conductance, heat transfer and interfacial temperature drop of finned tube heat exchanger test specimens. The results were based on the measured temperatures at several locations on the test specimen so that the thermal contact conductance could be directly determined. Each test specimen was assembled by mechanically expanding seven tubes into a single fin. The geometry of the specimens was based on a commonly used model of heat exchangers. The specimens included one bare tube (non-coated) specimen and four electroplated tube specimens. The plating metals were zinc, tin, silver and gold. The thickness of the plating in each case was 5 μm.Experiments have been conducted in both vacuum and nitrogen. Maximum enhancement was obtained when the tube was coated with tin. This indicates that, although the thermal conductivity is important, the softness of the plating material also plays an important role in enhancing the thermal conductance of the interface. The presence of an interstitial gas such as nitrogen is beneficial for the heat transfer and the thermal contact conductance. It is also noted that the interfacial temperature drop alone does not fully reflect the efficiency of the heat exchanger.     

Experimental Investigation on Flow Boiling Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of HFC-134a inside a Vertical Helically Coiled Tube

An investigation on flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop of HFC-134a inside a vertical helically coiled concentric tube-in-tube heat exchanger has been experimentally carried out. The test section is a six-turn helically coiled tube with 5.786-m length, in which refrigerant HFC-134a flowing inside the inner tube is heated by the water flowing in the annulus. The diameter and the pitch of the coil are 305 mm and 45 mm, respectively. The outer diameter of the inner tube and its thickness are respectively 9.52 and 0.62 mm. The inner diameter of the outer tube is 29 mm. The average vapor qualities in test section were varied from 0.1 to 0.8. The tests were conducted with three different mass velocities of 112, 132, and 152 kg/m²-s. Analysis of obtained data showed that increasing of both the vapor qualities and the mass fluxes leads to higher heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops. Also, it was observed that the heat transfer coefficient is enhanced and also the pressure drop is increased when a helically coiled tube is used instead of a straight tube. Based on the present experimental results, a correlation was developed to predict the flow boiling heat transfer coefficient in vertical helically coiled tubes.     

Experimental study of the thermal hydraulic performance of sub-cooled refrigerants flowing in smooth,micro-fin and herringbone tubes

The present paper reports an investigation of the thermo-hydraulic performance of two standard microfin tubes with different number of fins and a herringbone microfin tube. As a reference for comparison purposes a smooth tube of equal external diameter and wall thickness has been tested for similar operational conditions. Copper tubes of 9.52 mm external diameter, electrically heated, have been used in the investigation. Most of the reported data has been gathered with refrigerant R134a though refrigerant R22 was also used in some of the tests with both the smooth and one of the standard microfin tubes. The test tube entrance state of the working fluid was kept constant at a temperature of the order of −2.5 °C and a pressure of 500 kPa, whereas its mass velocity varied in the range between 100 kg/s m² and 1350 kg/s m². It has been found that the thermal performance of the herringbone tube is superior to that of the two standard microfin tubes though the pressure drop obtained with the former is clearly higher. All the microfin tubes present significant heat transfer enhancement with respect to the smooth tube. According to the present results, the enhancement ratio of the microfin tubes attains an asymptotic value for Reynolds numbers of the order of 20,000, the herringbone tube presenting the higher asymptotic value. A figure of merit parameter has been introduced to qualify each of the microfin tubes tested, with the both standard microfin tubes being the best qualified with respect to the herringbone one, especially for applications that operate at the intermediate Reynolds numbers range.     

Experimental Determination of the Boiling Heat Transfer Coefficients of R-134a and R-417A on a Smooth Copper Tube

Flooded evaporators are widely used as compact cooling units to cool liquids. They consist of a shell-and-tube heat exchanger, with the fluid to cool flowing inside the tubes of the bundle and a refrigerant that evaporates over those tubes. Pool boiling on the external surface of the tubes is a very complex process, and therefore the boiling heat transfer coefficients (HTCs) should be determined experimentally. Copper and copper alloys tubes are commonly employed in such heat exchangers, due to their high thermal conductivity and relative low cost. On the other hand, refrigeration and air conditioning sectors are undergoing significant changes caused mainly by the necessity of replacing existing refrigerants with more environmentally friendly ones. This paper reports the experimental determination of the pool boiling HTCs of R-134a and R-417A blend on a smooth copper tube of 18.87 mm diameter, at two saturation temperatures of 10°C and 7°C. Although smooth tubes are not commonly used in shell-and-tube evaporators nowadays, it is a first approach to pool boiling of drop-in refrigerants. The experimental setup and data acquisition are described, the experimental procedure is explained, the data reduction methodology is detailed, and the results are presented and discussed.