Experimental and CFD analysis on heat transfer and fluid flow characteristic of a tube equipped with variable pitch twisted tape

¹ School of Technology, PanditDeendayal Petroleum University, Gujarat, India
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, SVBIT, Vasan, Gujarat, India

^* Corresponding author: sakshum.kphd16@sot.pdpu.ac.in

Abstract

In this paper, we report an experimental and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) investigation on the overall heat transfer coefficient, friction factor and effectiveness of a tube equipped with classic and variable twisted tape inserts. Constant (Y = 4.0) and variable pitch twisted inserts (Y = 4-3-4) made of Stainless Steel and Aluminium were used during the experiments due to their ease in machinability. Resistance thermometers were used to measure temperature of the working fluid at the inlet and outlet of the test section. It was observed that the twisted tape in the tube imposes the turbulence in the fluid and enhances the heat transfer due to swirling flow. The results showed that the overall heat transfer coefficient and effectiveness of aluminium variable pitch twisted tape were higher than stainless steel inserts. The experimental data obtained were validated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. The constant pitch inserts for aluminium and stainless steel showed an enhancement of 67.54% and 66.65% as compared to plain tube. Whereas aluminium variable pitch inserts showed an enhancement of overall heat transfer coefficient by 18.15% as compared to constant pitch insert and stainless-steel variable pitch insert showed enhancement of 15.25% as compared to constant pitch insert.