Numerical Simulation of Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>-Water Nanofluid Flow and Heat Transfer in a Tube with Angled Rings

A numerical investigation has been conducted to examine turbulent flow and heat transfer characteristics in a three-dimensional isothermal tube mounted with 60° angled rings (AR). The ARs with pitch spacing ratio, PR=1.0 and various blockage ratios (BR) ranging from 0.025-0.1 are introduced. The computations are based on a finite volume method and the SIMPLE algorithm has been implemented. The fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics are presented for Reynolds number (Re) ranging from 3000 to 12000. To generate a main counter-vortex pair flow in the tube, ARs at an attack angle of 60° are mounted repeatedly in the tube. Effect of different BRs at a single PR and nanofluid, Al2O3water, with volume fractions 1% and 5% on heat transfer and friction loss is investigated. It is apparent that two main vortex flows created by the ARs exist and help to induce impinging flows on the tube wall leading to drastic increase in heat transfer rate over the tube. The increment in the BR gives rise to the increase in the Nusselt number and friction factor. The computational results reveal that the maximum thermal enhancement factor for the AR with BR=0.025 is found to be 1.8 at Re =3000. The results show that nanofluid, Al2O3 water, can increase the thermal performance when increasing volume fraction to 5%.</jats:p

Numerical Heat Transfer Study of Turbulent Tube Flow through Winglet-pairs

AbstractA numerical investigation on heat transfer behaviors in a constant heat-fluxed round tube inserted with winglet vortex generators is conducted. Air as the working medium flows through the tube for Reynolds numbers (Re) between 4000 and 20,000. The effect of using the rectangular-winglet tape (RWT) on heat transfer characteristics in the tube is numerically examined. For comparison purpose, the trapezoidal-winglet tape (TWT) and delta-winglet tape (DWT) are also offered. The RWT parameters in this work include four relative winglet-to-tube heights or blockage ratios (BR=b/D= 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, and 0.25) while the TWT and DWT are only at BR= 0.2. All the winglet pairs are at a single attack angle (α= 45°) and pitch ratio (p/D=PR=4). The numerical results show that the Nusselt number (Nu) and friction factor (f) of the tube inserts are enhanced with increasing BR values. The Nu for the inserted tube is about 1.8-2.7 times above that for the smooth tube while the f is around 4.5-11 times higher. For the studied BR ranges, the highest thermal performance is 1.48 for the RWT with BR= 0.1 at lower Reynolds number

Numerical Heat Transfer Investigation in a Heat Exchanger Tube with Hexagonal Conical-ring Inserts

AbstractThe hexagonal conical rings (HCR) modified from the typical conical ring (CR) are used as a turbulence promoter for producing the vortex flows to enhance the heat transfer rate in a heat exchanger tube. To reduce the pressure loss, the V-shaped HCR (V-HCR) obtained by cutting both symmetric plane of the cone-tip of HCR at 30°, 45° and 60° is offered in the present work. The tube fitted with V-HCR elements having a fixed inlet and outlet diameter is numerically investigated. The computation is carried out for Reynolds number in a range of 3000 to 20,000 in a uniform heat-fluxed test tube. The numerical results show that the V-HCR insert leads to much higher heat transfer than the typical CR/HCR insert or the smooth tube alone and also provides lower friction factor. The 30° V-shaped HCR gives the highest heat transfer and thermal performance due to the lowest friction loss, indicating the promising device of the V-HCR

Heat Transfer Augmentation in Round Tube with Diamond-shaped Baffle Inserts

Abstract Influences of diamond-shaped baffle (DSB) insertion in a heat exchanger tube on its thermal performance are experimentally presented. The DSB elements were repeatedly mounted into the tube using two straight small rods to connect the DSBs together to produce the longitudinal vortex flows inside. The experiments were carried out in a constant surface heat-fluxed tube equiped with DSBs. The DSBs were placed periodically with an attack angle of 45° and a pitch spacing of three times of tube diameter (PR=P/D=3) while four different DSB heights called blockage ratios (BR=b/D=0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4) were offered. Air was used as the test fluid flowed into the tube to yield the Reynolds number (Re) in a range of 4190-26,000. The heat transfer rate and the pressure drop of the current work were presented in terms of Nusselt number (Nu) and friction factor (f), respectively. The experimental results showed that the DSB provides the increase in the heat transfer around 3.53-4.16 times higher than the smooth tube while friction factor increases around 16.68-29.52 times. To evaluate the gain of using the DSB, the thermal performance factor (TEF) is determined in a range of 1.25-1.55 whereas the highest TEF is found at BR=0.1.</jats:p