• Numerical Analysis of a Helical Coiled Heat Exchanger using CFD
• Author  :  Shiva Kumar, K.Vasudev Karanth
• Pages   :  126-130
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• Abstract

Heat exchangers are the important equipments with a variety of industrial applications including power plants, chemical, refrigeration and air conditioning industries. Helically coiled heat exchangers are used in order to obtain a large heat transfer area per unit volume and to enhance the heat transfer coefficient on the inside surface. This paper deals with the CFD simulation of helical coiled tubular heat exchanger used for cooling water under constant wall temperature conditions. The results are validated by the results obtained by the numerical correlations used by different researchers. CFD results are also compared with the results obtained by the simulation of straight tubular heat exchanger of the same length under identical operating conditions. Results indicated that helical heat exchangers showed 11% increase in the heat transfer rate over the straight tube. Simulation results also showed 10% increase in nusselt number for the helical coils whereas pressure drop in case of helical coils is higher when compared to the straight tube.

Keywords: Helical Coiled Heat Exchanger, CFD

Article published in International Journal of Thermal Technologies, Vol.3, No.4 (Dec- 2013)