Convective heat transfer in a circular tube with short-length twisted tape insert

This work presents an experimental study on the mean Nusselt number, friction factor and enhancement efficiency characteristics in a round tube with short-length twisted tape insert under uniform wall heat flux boundary conditions. In the experiments, measured data are taken at Reynolds numbers in a turbulent region with air as the test fluid. The full-length twisted tape is inserted into the tested tube at a single twist ratio of y/w = 4.0 while the short-length tapes mounted at the entry test section are used at several tape length ratios (LR = l_s/l_f) of 0.29, 0.43, 0.57 and 1.0 (full-length tape). The short-length tape is introduced as a swirling flow device for generating a strong swirl flow at the tube entry before decaying along the tube. On the other hand, the full-length tape (LR = 1.0) is expected to produce a strongly swirling flow over the whole tube. The variation of heat transfer and pressure loss in the form of Nusselt number (Nu) and friction factor (f) respectively is determined and depicted graphically. The experimental result indicates that the short-length tapes of LR = 0.29, 0.43 and 0.57 perform lower heat transfer and friction factor values than the full-length tape around 14%, 9.5% and 6.7%; and 21%, 15.3% and 10.5%, respectively. In addition, it is apparent that the enhancement efficiency of the tube with the short-length tape insert is found to be lower than that with the full-length one. The mean deviation between measured and correlated values of the Nusselt number is in the order of ± 7% in the range of Reynolds numbers from 4000 to 20,000.