Computational Fluid Dynamics and Optimization of Flow and Heat Transfer in Coiled Tube-in-Tube Heat Exchangers Under Turbulent Flow Conditions

Abstract

The present computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study was performed to investigate the 3D turbulent flow and heat transfer of coiled tube-in-tube heat exchangers (CTITHEs). The realizable k-epsilon model with enhanced wall treatment was used to simulate the turbulent flow and heat transfer in the heat exchangers. Temperature dependent thermophysical properties of water were used and heat exchangers are analyzed considering conjugate heat transfer from hot fluid in the inner-coiled tube to cold fluid in the annulus region. After simulations, Taguchi method was used for finding the optimum condition for some design parameters in the range of coil diameter from 0.18 to 0.3 m, tube and annulus flow rates from 2 to 4 and 10 to 20 LPM, respectively. Results show that the Gnielinski correlation used extensively for predicting Nusselt number for turbulent flow in ducts can be used to predict Nusselt number for both inner-coiled tube and annular coiled tube using the friction factor correlation for helical tubes of Mishra and Gupta. Contribution ratio obtained by Taguchi method shows that annulus side flow rate, tube side flow rate, coil diameter, and flow configuration are the most important design parameters in coiled tube-in-tube heat exchangers, respectively.