Open Access

ARTICLE

Effect of the Arrangement of a New-Type of Turbulator Inserts on Heat Pipe Exchanger Performances

Ibtisam A. Hasan^*, Wafa Maki

Department of Electromechanical Engineering, The University of Technology, Baghdad, Iraq

* Corresponding Author: Ibtisam A. Hasan. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Recent advancements in thermal fluid flow applications)

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2023, 19(10), 2749-2759. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2023.027260

Received 21 October 2022; Accepted 14 December 2022; Issue published 25 June 2023

Abstract

This research tests the effect of introducing turbulators of a new type into a circular tube heat exchanger under a constant and uniform longitudinal heat flux condition. A 45 mm diameter copper tube with a length of 1,350 mm is utilized with a solid disk being inserted inside the tube, which consists of three sections, each one containing two slots. The slot is cut at a 45 degree angle toward the inner tube surface, which results in diverging the flow toward the inner hot tube surface in order to enhance the heat transfer process. Air is considered as the working fluid with Prandtl number 0.71. The Reynolds number spans the interval from 6,000–13,500, which indicates that the considered flow is turbulent. The heat exchanger performance is studied and analyzed in terms of average Nusselt number. The experimental results show that the Nusselt number value is directly proportional to the increase of the Reynolds number, and the number of turbulators inserts. With the use of three novel turbulators, the heat transfer was about 3.15 times higher than that in the smooth tube and the friction factor was about 1.11.

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Keywords

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