FROM:

SflGE P U B L I C f l T I O N S

F R X NO . s

4990871

11-16-98

09:37

P. 03

A Parametric Study of Horizontal Concentric Heat Exchangers for Storage Tanks

by A, Nasr, G. L Morrison, and M. Behnia
ABSTRACTHeat exchanger based liquid storage systems have numerous applications such as solar water heating systems and chemical processes. One of the most common heat exchanger based storage systems uses a. concentric or mantle heat exchanger around the storage tank. In this configuration, fluid from a heat source travels around the annular gap enclosing the central storage tank and transfers heat to the liquid in the central storage tank. Due to the simultaneous occurrence of both cooling and heating processes, the performance of a concentric heal exchanger is quite complex and its characteristics differ significantly from traditional heat exchangers. The flow and heat transfer characteristics of an annular heat exchanger were investigated numerically, and the calculated How patterns and heat transfer were compared with experimental data, A heat exchanger deficiency coefficient was developed to quantify the degradation of thermal stratification in the inner storage t?nV caused by the flow in the annulus.

1. Introduction There have been numerous applications of heat exchangers for thermosyphon solar water heating systems, Morrison (1995) and Webster, Coutier, Place, and Tavan (1987) proposed a horizontal storage tank consisting of a number of horizontal tubes located near the bottom of the storage tank in a solar water heater. Their experimental and numerical results indicated that in such a system there was very little thermal stratification developed in the tank as a result of the disturbance caused by heat input into the bottom of the tank. This effect causes a loss of the benefit of thermal stratification and could be one of the consequences of using any type of beat exchanger in thermosyphon systems with horizontal storage tanks. However Webster observed a performance degradation of less than 10%, which was regarded as small enough to make the system technically feasible. To overcome problems with heat exchanger based solar hot water storage tanks. Parent, Van Der Meer, and Hollands (1987) investigated the performance of systems employing a single pass side arm heat exchanger installed cither inside or outside the storage tank (immersed type and external type, respectively). In both systems, a vertical tank was used to enhance the buoyancy-induced convection on the storage tank side of the heat exchanger and a pump was used in the collector loop on the other side of the side arm heat exchanger Although the stratification performance was preserved in both cases, the manufacturing cost and installation problems were

A. Nasr, C. L. Morrison, ondM. Bchnia, School of Mcchunicel and M anufaturing Engineering, University of'M?w South Wales. Sydney 2052, Australia.
Communicated byS. N.

considered to be major disadvantages, Mertol, Place, Webster, and Grief (1981) numerically investigated a heat exchanger consisting of copper tubes immersed in the bottom section of a vertical storage tank and showed that the system was capable of 90% of the performance of a direct-coupled collector heating system (without heat exchanger). Baur, Klein, and Beckman (1993) studied a vertical concentric heat exchanger based system for pumped circulation solar water heaters and concluded that there was little difference in annual performance between a vertical mantle tank and an external hoat exchanger tank in solar water heaters. The advantages of their design over other designs were claimed to be simplicity, larger heat transfer area, and higher efficiency. More recently, Furbo (1993) showed that for a vertical tank with a mantle heat exchanger, the temperature stratification in the inner tank is not disturbed by heat transfer from the fluid in the annulus, since the inlet fluid in the annulus moves directly to a level just above its thermal equilibrium level with the water in the inner tank. A heat exchanger based solar water heater storage system commonly used in thermosyphon solar water hcatingsystcms uses two horizontal concentric cylinders. In this configuration, the inner cylinder serves as the storage tank and the hot liquid flows in the annular cavity between the two cylinders. The performance of this type of heat exchanger is complex, since the flow in the annulus undergoes both cooling and heating processes during one pass, The objective of the present work is to investigate the flow and heat transfer characteristics in such a heat exchanger (Figure 1). The collector loop inlet and outlet connection points to such an annular heat exchanger in a solar water heater arc normally made to the bonom of the annular cavity in order to minimize heat loss due to reverse circulation between the tank and the collector at night time. The bottom position of the hot inlet penalizes the performance due to los*of stratification from heat input to the bottom of the tank rather than to the thermal equilibrium position. Stratification in the storage tank could he improved .if the collector return point were just below the level of the internal electric or gas booster clement in the tank. However, high connections to the tank require careful insulation of the collector to tank pipes in order to minimize reverse circulation at night. To understand the trade-off between improved stratification and increased losses due to reverse circulation, this paper reports an experimental and numerical study of the flow and temperature characteristics of these systems. For the experiment, a half-scale model of a typical horizontal tank mantle heat exchanger was constructed with a Pcrspcx outer wall to allow visualization of the flow in the annular passageway

Computer Modeling and Simulation in Engineering 269

FROM:

SflGE PUBLICflTIONS

FflX NO . :

4990871

11-16-98

89:38

P .04

Flow to colkcMr

Fkmfaa

!^

Figure 1, Mantle heat exchanger used with horizontal tank solar water heating systems (width of annular gap exaggerated),
Pcrjpcx outer cylinder end flange

>x

\n metal inner tank

flow Hot inlet flow

Cold outlet

v, i

_X 1

Heat exchanger omukr passage

Figure 2, Horizontal tank annular heat exchanger test model.

(Figure 2). The concentric heat exchanger in the present study has an outer cylinder diameter D0 of 300 mm and an inner cylinder diameter D\f 290 rom (D(/D0 = 0,97). The flow enters the annulus through an inlet port at the bottom of one end and exits from a port at the bottom of the other end. Both the inlet and outlet pipes have an internal diameter of Dp = 44 mm (DP/D0 = 0.15) with a spacing -frew-th* .end wall of the annulwof S = 700 mm (S/D0 = 2.3) (see Figure 2). The inlet and outlet pipes entered vertically into the bottom of the annulus between the inner and outer cylinders as commonly used in thermosyphon solar water heaters. The laboratory model heat exchanger had an overall length I of 916mm, Flow visualization using dye injection into the annular cavity was used to determine the flow structure. Significant unsteadiness in the flow near the inlet port was observed due lo impingement of the inlet flow onto the inner tank wall opposite the inlet port. Although this geometry introduces complications into the flow, it was investigated first because it is the most common configuration used in commercial solar water heaters. Flow visualization and simulation of the flow and heat transfer in the annulus is difficult due to the curvature of the working space- This project presents some results for the curved annulus and details of flow in a vertical slot configuration in order to investigate the effect of different boundary conditions, including the impingement inlet shown in Figures 1 and 2 and an inlet parallel to the annulus walls.

employed to investigate the problem. The FLUENT CFD code was used to solve the flow and energy equations in the annulus of the concentric heat exchanger. The number of nodes along the anmilus axis and in the radial and circumferential directions was 93, ] 7, and 42, respectively (a total of 66,402 cells). The mesh was concentrated in the high- gradient regions near the walls and around the inlet and outlet. The three-dimensional laminar flow equations for continuity, Navier-Stokcs, and energy were solved. For the treatment of pressure, the SIMPLE algorithm was adopted in conjunction with a multigrid scheme. For accuracy, the QUICK discretization of the convection terms was used (at least secondorder accurate). The energy equation was solved in the form of a transport equation for the static enthalpy using a multigrid scheme. The density was assumed to be constant except in the buoyancy term, which was modeled using the Boussinesq approximation. The viscous dissipation terms were neglected. Tests with finer grids showed grid dependency errors of less than 5% for velocity and 3% for temperature. The inlet flow was assumed to be a plug profile type. In the outlet, both pressure and fully developed outlet conditions were examined. It was noted that the flow field in the annulus was not strongly affected by the assumption of the outlet boundary condition. The most significant boundary condition is the thermal condition of the inner tank wall. The surface of the inner wall of the annulus was divided into top, central, and bottom sections. The top and bottom section;-; had the same surface area, whereas the surface area of the central section was twice that of the top and bottom sections, To simulate a thermally stratified inner tank, temperatures of TJ = 330 K and Tb ** 300 K were prescribed for the top and bottom sections, respectively, and the central section was divided into 20 horizontal strips with a temperature gradient of 1,4 K per strip. It was assumed that the outer cylinder surface was adiabatic. Inlet velocities of 7.5 to .15 mm/s were used, corresponding to flow rates of 0.7 to 1.4 L/min and inlet Reynolds numbers of 300 to 600, which are typical of thermosyphon solar water heating systems. The inlet temperature was assumed to be 315 1C

3. Evaluation of the CFD Code

Measurements of heat transfer between the flow in the annulus and the water in the central tank were performed on the model of a typical solar water mantle heat exchanger (Figure 2) to evaluate the accuracy of the numerical simulations. The dimensions of the heat exchanger in the experiment were approximately half of those currently used in mantle hent exchanger thermosyphon solar water heating systems. The inner cylinder was made of 02 mm steeK and the ends of the cylinders were closed with Pcrspex flange plates. The outer cylinder was made of Pcrspex 50 that due injection could be used to visualize the flow patterns in the annulus. Temperature-controlled water was pumped through the annulus to simulate the solar collector loop flow circulation. The inner tank surface temperatures were measured using thermocouples fixed on the inner surface of the tank while the outer cylinder was insulated. The experiments included flow visualization and temperature measurements for a uniform temperature inner tank wall with flow into the annulua of 0.68 L/min and a range of inlet temperatures. The measured and computed heat transfer for isothermal inner tank conditions (Figure 3) showed that the. numerical model gives an accurate simulation of overall heat transfer.

2. Numerical Simulation
The analysis of this problem is complicated by the mixed forced and free convection processes in the annulus and the impinging wall jet effect at the inlet due to the location of the inlet pipe at right angles to the bottom of the annular gap. The aim of this investigation is to understand the flow and heat transfer phenomena in annular heat exchangers for the design and optimization of solar water heaters. The focus of this report is on the design of solar water heaters rather than the development of new simulation procedures; hence, a reliable, widely used CFD code (FLUENT, Release 4.4) was

270

Vbf. 3, No. 4, November 1996

FROM:

SflGE P U B L I C f l T I O N S

FflX

NO . :

4990871

11-16-98

09:39

P .05

4. Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics The computational results are presented in two sections. The flow development and heat transfer characteristics in annular heat exchangers are presented in this section. In the next section, the annular cavity is approximated by a vertical cavity to simplify the evaluation of the effect of cavity geometry on the performance of this type of heat exchanger. 4, T Flow Development The computed velocity vectors in the midplane of the annulus are shown in Figure 4. This figure indicates relatively high velocities adjacent to the inlet port due to deflection of the inlet flow off the tank wall directly opposite the inlet port, A flow recirculation zone above the inlet and adjacent to the near end wall of the cavity is also evident in Figure 4, It can be seen that, due to its initial momentum and buoyancy, the main flow rises up to the central region of the cavity and then flows down toward the outlet port. Due to the opposing buoyancy effect caused by cooling on the inner tank wall, flow penetration into the top half section of the annulus is prevented. Similar flow behavior was also observed in the planes adjacent to the inner and outer walls of the annulus. Figure 4 shows that the flow field adjacent to the inlet and outlet ports differs significantly due to the jet impingement and free convection effects near the inlet port and forced convection near the outlet port. "ft> examine the effect of buoyancy on the flow field in the annular cavity, computations were performed for the case of forced convection only, as proposed by Ramadbyani, Zcnouzi, and Astill (1984), The computed velocity vectors in the midplane of the annulus, neglecting buoyancy effects, arc shown in Figure 5. Here, due to the absence of the normal opposing buoyancy effects caused by cooling on the inner tank wall, the flow penetration into the top of the cavity is stronger

and recirculation adjacent to the end wall is suppressed. The flow field for the forced convection only condition shown in Figure 5 is symmetric in contrast to the mixed convection case shown in Figure 4, thus indicating the importance of buoyancy effects on flow development in this type of concentric heat exchanger.

4.2 Thermal Field

Figure 6 shows the computed temperature contours in the midplane of the annulus. The contours arc more dispersed in the bottom and central sections above the inlet, implying stronger convective heat transfer than in the top section of the cavity. The existence of high-temperature gradients around the inlet indicates high heat transfer or mixing of hot incoming fluid due to impingement of the inlet flow on the tank wall directly opposite the effect at the inlet. For the ca$e of forced convection without buoyancy, the computed temperature contours in the midplane of the annulus arc shown in Figure 7. Here, unlike the mixed convection case (Figure 6), the temperature contours above the inlet port indicate stronger penetration of the incoming fluid into the top region of the annulus. The top undisturbed region of the annulus observed for the mixed convection case is not evident in Figure 7 due to the absence of the normal tank wall cooling on the buoyancy of the fluid in the annulus.

\vhv\vt V*VVM 1 1

uj j j ift^

Figure 5. Computed velocity vectors in the midplane of the annulus (no buoyancy).
-1000

Q wans
-2000

-3000
20

30

40

50

Figure 3. Comparison of measured and computed heat transfer.

Figure 6. Temperature contours in the midplane of the annulus, 7^ SB 315 K, and tank stratification from 300 to 330 K.

'

: ~'lll\f :-::::
Figure 7. Temperature contours in the midplane of the annulus for forced convection only (buoyancy suppressed), T\ 315 K and tank stratification from 300 to 330 K,

Figure 4. Computed velocity vectors in the midplane of the annulus.

Computer Modeling and Simulation in Engineering

271

FROM:

SflGE

PUBLICflTIONS

FOX NO.:

4990871

11-16-98

09:40

P.06

/*.3 Heat Flux The contours of heat flux through the inner tank wall arc shown in Figure 8, The majority of the heat transfer from the flow in the annulus to the inner tank takes place near (he bottom of the cavity, which in practice causes mixing of the inner tank. The existence of a large region with positive heat flux (local heat removal from the inner tank) in the middle and upper sections of the annulus indicates that some of the flow in the annulus rises above its thermal equilibrium level with the inner tank, resulting in energy removal from the inner tank in this region. The heat flux in the small zone opposite the ' nlet is VCr-v W8h> about 3Xw/m*>due to the impinging Of lJie jniet flow on t|jC opposite cold tank wall. Heat flux distribution for forced convection only, shown in Figure 9, indicates a much larger region of heat removal from the top of the thermally stratified inner tank due to the penetration of the inlet flow to the top of the annulus. These results indicate that buoyancy effects in the annulus have a significant effect on the flow; however, the high heat flux zones are due to convection effects adjacent to the inlet and outlet ports. 4.4 Heat Exchanger Deficiency Coefficient The degradation of the thermal stratification of the inner tank by the flow in the annulus can be considered as a deficiency of the concentric heat exchanger for application to solar thermosyphon systems. To quantify the stratification degradation of the inner tank, a heat exchanger deficiency coefficient is introduced, For sections of the tank wall in the lower parts of the annulus, heat transfer is from the fluid in the annuius to the inner tank (i,e. q" < 0). However, if the liquid in the annulus rises above its thermal equilibrium level, due to the effect of inlet momentum, the heal transfer direction changes from the inner tank to the liquid in the annul us (i.e., q[' > 0), The heat transfer into the central tank in the lower part of the annulus can be determined by T| = (Slower - C / ) / G f
CD

where q" is the heat flux on any surface strip i, n is the number of strips covering the inner tank walls, with q" < 0, and At is the area of each strip. The total heat transfer is determined from

(2)
where m is the total number of surface strips covering the inner tank wall. The difference between the heat transfer in the lower part of the annulus, gj^^ and the loial heat transfer, Qf, is an indication of the energy displacement and degradation of the inner tank thermal stratification. This is used to quantify the heat exchanger deficiency coefficient as

(3)

In a similar fashion to equations (I) and (2), the heat transfer between the bottom of the tank and a vertical location y was calculated 2y)- Figure JO shows the variation of Qy (normalized with Qf) for mixed and purely forced convection cases. The overall effectiveness of the heat exchanger, neglecting the stratification degradation, can be quantified by the standard effectiveness e, where

Figure 8, Heat flux contours through the inner tank wall (W/m2) for mixed convection only. rjn as 315 K, and tank stratification from 300 to 330 K.

mCp(Tm - Tb0t) and rbot is the temperature where in the bottom of the tank. The total heat transfer for the mixed convection case was -433 W or effectiveness 6 = 0.59. For the forced convection case, the heat transfer was -227 W and c = 0.31, indicating that buoyancy effects in the cavity have a major effect on the heat transfer between the collector loop and the storage tank. It is noted that the magnitude of Qy goes ituough a maximum at around y/R, = 0.1 (Figure/0). suggesting that a significant part of the heat is transferred near the bottom of the annulus,
1.0

10

-1.0

-1.2

Figure 9. Heat flux contours through the inner tank wall W/m2 tor forced convection only (buoyancy suppressed). rin ^ 315 K, and tank stratification from 300 to 330 K.

Figure 10, Distribution of heat transfer with height for mixed and forced convection cases.

272 Vol. 3, No. 4, November 1996

FROM:

SflSE PUBLI CRT IONS

FflX NO. :

4990871

11-16-98

09:40

P .07

The heat exchanger deficiency coefficient for mixed and forced convection cases was computed to be i\ 5 and 17%, respectively. Thus, in the mixed convection case, 5% of the net heat transfer into the tank is removed from the hot top section and downgraded to the cold bottom section of the tank. 5. Effect of Geometry on Flow and Heat Transfer It has been shown in Nasr. Morrison, and Behnia (1996) that the flow and heat transfer characteristics of a horizontal annular heat exchanger are similar to the flow and heat transfer in a narrow vertical cavity with the same boundary conditions. For this reason and for the sake of simplicity in grid generation, the effect of the geometry of the cavity on the How and heat transfer characteristics was examined using an equivalent vertical cavity with boundary conditions typically used in mantle heat exchangers in solar water heaters. The vertical cavity had the same length as the concentric annulus, and the height of the vertical cavity was equal to half of the inner cylinder periphery.
5.1 Effect of the Inlet Position 5-1.1 FLOW DEVELOPMENT

5.2.1 FLOW DEVELOPMENT For a small cavity width, the recirculation zone near the inlet was suppressed; however, the incoming fluid penetrated higher into the top of the cavity above the thermal equilibrium level 5.2.2 HEAT TRANSFER The effect of the cavity width on heat transfer rate is shown in Figure 12. The heat transfer rate was computed to be -555 W for the original cavity width of 5 mm (effectiveness e = 0.76), -536 W (e = 0,73) for a 10-mm width, and -560 W (s = 0.77) for 2.5-mm width. Figure 12 shows that the peak value of QylQt significantly increases for narrow cavities. The computed heat exchanger deficiency was found to be 18. 5.9, and 5,2% for cavity widths of 2.5, 5, and 10 mm. respectively. Although the total heat transfer rate for the narrow cavity is slightly higher, the deficiency coefficient is substantially higher, indicating that in narrow cavities the higher inlet velocities cause the flow to penetrate farther up the cavity and to significantly degrade the inner tank thermal stratification,

5.3 Effect of the Cavity Height

In closed-loop thermosyphon solar water heaters using a mantle heat exchanger, the top of the mantle typically has an air pocket due to air released from the water in the collector loop. To simulate the effect of cavjty height, the flow and heat transfer were computed for cavity heights 25 and 50%

To examine the effect of the inlet port relative to the end wall of the cavity, three inlet pipe positions were evaluated. The inlet pipe centerline was set perpendicular to the walls for two cases, with 20 and 0 cavity widths offset from the right end wall A third case that evaluated the effect of the inJet How entering parallel to the heat transfer wall was also considered. It was observed that the size and strength of the recirculation cell adjacent to the end wall beside the inlet port is a maximum when the flow enters parallel to the heat transfer surface. The recirculation was minimized when the flow entered normal to the heat transfer surface and in the corner of the cavity (end wall offset 0). The height of the flow penetration into the top of the cavity was observed to be substantially independent of the inlet port configuration, thus demonstrating that buoyancy is the governing factor affecting flow penetration. 5.1,2 HEAT TRANSFER The normalized heat transfer rates, Qy/Qtt for the three inlet port configurations are shown in Figure 11. The total heat transfer rate was similar for the three cases; however, the degradation of stratification was highest for the case with the inlet port entering at right angles to the heat transfer surface and displaced from the end wall. For this condition, the recirculating flow covered a large section of the zone between the end wall and the inlet port, and this recirculation produced significant heat transport from the top to the bottom levels of the tank, The heat exchanger deficiency was found to be 7.7 and 5.9% for the inlet port set perpendicular to the tank walls and offset from the outlet end wall by 20 and 0 cavity widths, respectively. For the parallel entry case, the deficiency factor was 4.3%.

1.0

Figure 11. Effect of inlet port location on distribution of heat transfer in a vertical cavity.

5.2 Effect of the Cavity Width

The effect of cavity width was investigated for the inlet port configuration in the bottom corner of the cavity that resulted in minimum recirculation above the inlet port.
-o.i Q/Q, -0.0
Figure 12. Effect of cavity width on the distribution of heat transfer around the inner tank wall. Computer Modeling and Simulation in Engineering 273

FROM:

SRGE P U B L I C R T I O N S

FflX N O . :

4990871

11-16-98

09:41

P .08

.less than a full cavity. The inlet pipe was taken in the bottom corner adjacent to the end wall

5.3.1 FLOW DEVELOPMENT

For the full cavity and the 25% reduced cavity height, no recirculation was observed near the inlet. For a 50% reduction in cavity height, the inlet flow reached the top of the working section of the cavity and traveled along the top of the partially filled section of the cavity toward the outlet end,

5.3.2 HEAT TRANSFER

The effect of the cavity height on the heat transfer is shown in Figure 13, The magnitude of Qy/Qt in the lower part of the cavity is independent of cavity heihi, indicating that the heat transfer at the bottom of Che cavity is not influenced by cavity depth. For the case of half-cavity height, the heat exchanger deficiency is nearly zero, since the flow cannot reach the upper levels of the inner tank. 6. Conclusions The flow and heat transfer characteristics in an annular heat exchanger with inlet and outlet connections at the bottom have been studied numerically. A recirculating flow region above the inkt i$ observed. The results show that a significant part of the heat transfer occurs in the bottom of the annulus, which, in practice, causes degradation of the thermal stratification of the water in the inner lank. Simulations with buoyancy effects neglected reveal that the flow penetration into the top of the cavity is stronger, but there is no evidence of flow recirculation. To account for the degradation of thermal stratification of the inner tank, a heat exchanger deficiency

coefficient r\$ defined. For the annular heat exchanger configuration investigated in this study, the deficiency coefficient was found to range from T| = 0 to 18%, indicating that up 10 18% of the total heat transfer is removed from the top and transferred to the bottom of the inner tank (i.e., stratification degradation). For fixed inlet and outlet positions, the heat exchanger deficiency coefficient was found to increase as the cavity width is reduced. For the thermal boundary conditions investigated, the heat exchanger effectiveness was found to vary from 50% to 77% depending on the geometry of the cavity, References ^
L Biiur. M,, Klain, A., and Beck man, ;1993, "Simulation of ^atcr tank* Ii with mantle neat excriangers," Solar Energy. 286-291, _-J^ 2. Furbo, S., 1993, "Optimum design of small .DHW low flow solar systems." in ISES Solar World Congress, Budapest, Hungary, 5r 117-122. 3. Mcriol, A., Place, W., Webster. T, and Greif> R., 1951, "Detailed loop model (DLM) analysis of liquid solar thermosyphons wiih htnt exchangers/' Solar Energy 27, 367-386, 4. Morrison. G, L, 1995. "International Energy Agency, solar heating and cooling programme,'* in D^ign and Rating of Solar Water Healer Storage Tanks Workshop, IEASHC/WS/2-95. San Diego, California. 5. NH*T A,, Morrison, G. U, and Bchnia, M.. 1996. "Compulation*! study of flow and heat transfer characteristics of annular and vertical cavities," in The Second China-Australia Symposium on Computational Mechanics. University of New South Wales, 185-194. 6. Parent, M, G., Van Per Mecr, R, and Hollands, K.G.T. 1 W, "Natural convection heal exchangers in solar water heating systems: Theory and experiment Solar Energy 3* 219-231. 7. Ramadhyani, $., Tcnowi. M.. and Asiill, K. N., 1984, "Combined nai ural and forced convcciivc heal transfer in spherical annuli/V- Heai Transfej 106,811-816.
$. Webster, T. U, Coulter, J. P., Place, J. Wr. and Tavan, M., J987, -| pcrimemal evaluation of solar iherirnnyphons wi*h heat exchangers,"

274 Vol. 3, No. -4. November 1996