Influence of perforated triple twisted tape on thermal performance characteristics of a tube heat exchanger

One of the challenging tasks in the development of heat exchangers is to select an appropriate geometry that will consume minimum energy. This could be achieved by designing a suitable enhancing device which will boost the thermal performance characteristics of heat exchangers. Twisted tape swirl generator, a heat transfer enhancement device equipped in a tube heat exchanger would induce turbulence and superimposed vortex motion causing a reduction in the hydrodynamic or thermal boundary layer thickness which results in the improvement of convective heat transfer. In this study, a new design of perforated triple twisted tape (PTTT) insert was applied as a swirl flow device with four different porosities (Rp) of 1.2, 4.6, 10.4 and 18.6% to enhance the convective heat transfer of a tube heat exchanger. The effects of porosity (Rp) of PTTT swirl generators on heat transfer, fluid friction and thermal performance characteristics of a tube heat exchanger were experimentally investigated. The experiments were conducted under constant heat flux condition using air as the working fluid in turbulent flow regime for variation in Reynolds number (Re) from 7250 to 49,800. The Nusselt number of the tube installed with PTTT inserts for porosity ranging from 1.2 to 18.6% was found to be 88–320% higher, whereas, the friction factor was achieved to be 112–355% higher in comparison to the plain tube. The highest heat transfer result of 320% was obtained at a porosity of 4.6% with PTTT insert compared to the smooth tube. Despite the significant enhancement in heat transfer, the friction factor was obtained to be 355% higher in comparison to the plain tube at a porosity of 4.6% with PTTT insert. The experimental results demonstrated that Nusselt number, friction factor, and thermal enhancement efficiency (TEE) were increased with decreasing the porosity of the tape inserts except for 1.2%. The heat transfer performance was evaluated based on constant blower power and the values were found to be 1.13–1.5 relative to the plain tube. The maximum TEE of 1.5 was achieved using PTTT insert with a porosity of 4.6%. Based on the experimental data, the empirical correlations of heat transfer, friction factor and TEE were developed in terms of Rp, Re and Prandtl number (Pr) to predict the heat transfer, friction factor and TEE. The optimal design of PTTTs based on the evaluation of thermal performance with suitable porosity could be an excellent heat transfer enhancement device for many industrial applications.