Numerical Study of Mass Transfer Enhancement in Coiled Flow Inverter

Table of Contents
Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3
Theory ........................................................................................................................................ 4
Dean flow in curved tubes ................................................................................................................... 4
Mass Transfer in gas-liquid contactor ................................................................................................. 5
Numerical Model ....................................................................................................................... 6
Model Equation ................................................................................................................................... 6
Numerical solution of equations ......................................................................................................... 7
Grid system and geometry .................................................................................................................. 8
Convergence and grid test ................................................................................................................... 8
Results and Discussion............................................................................................................... 8
Velocity profile ..................................................................................................................................... 8
Enhancement on mass transfer due to dean vortices in oxygenation of water ................................. 9
Effect of curvature ............................................................................................................................. 10
Mass transfer enhancement in carbonation of water ....................................................................... 10
Pressure drop consideration.............................................................................................................. 11
Shear Stress consideration ................................................................................................................ 11
Conclusions .............................................................................................................................. 13
References ................................................................................................................................ 14

Abstract
Dean vortices have been known as an effective means for enhancing heat and mass
transfer. Enhancement of flux through the wall has been studied for helically wound hollow-
fibre membrane module by various authors. Recently, a novel chaotic geometry, Coiled Flow
Inverter (CFI) has been reported with significant increase in heat transfer and mixing
characteristics. In the present study, use of coiled flow inverter geometry as hollow fibre
membrane module has been analyzed. Two different gas liquid contact system through
membrane, oxygenation and carbonation have been modeled for hollow membrane CFI using
computational fluid dynamics techniques. The gas pressure has been taken constant as 2x104
Pascal and flows have been simulated for tube side for laminar flow regime. Results for
helical coil and straight tube have been compared to known experimental results and it has
been shown that 10-19% enhancement can be achieved in CFI as compared to helical coil.
Enhancement of mass transfer in helical coil and CFI has been substantiated with secondary
flow prediction at various cross sections. Dependency of Sherwood number on various
geometrical parameters and Reynolds number has been predicted for the case of helical coil
and a new correlation- Sh= 0.532(Re)0.64(dt/L)0.33(P/dt)(dt/dc)0.32Sc0.33 has been developed
based on regression analysis. Three geometries with different curvature ratio- 7.75, 10 and 15
have been compared for CFI and helical coil and decrease in mass transfer coefficient with
increasing curvature ratio has been obtained for both CFI and helical coil. Pressure drop and
shear stress has been studied for CFI, helical coil and straight tube and compared with known
correlation. Introduction of bend in CFI has been found to reduce shear stress slightly and
hence pressure drop for CFI as compared to helical coil. Numbers of merits have been
calculated for CFI with respect to straight tube and performance per unit energy has been 1.61
to 1.92 times as compared to straight tube.

Keywords: Concentration polarization; Dean Vortices; hollow fibre membrane module; Gas-
liquid contactors;
Introduction
Performance of hollow membrane modules is severely limited by concentration
polarization and membrane fouling. Several applications like gas absorption, pervaporation,
air stripping, aeration and de-aeration suffer due to these limitations. A number of methods
have been tried to overcome these limitation by either modifying the flow conditions or
changing the geometry. Some of these methods are pulsation [1], Taylor vortices [2],
introducing roughness [3], Dean Vortices [4] and air sparging [5]. Each of these methods has
its own advantage as well as disadvantage. For example, although introducing roughness
inside the membrane can prove very effective in breaking concentration polarization, it is
difficult from geometrical point of view. In the present study, advantages and disadvantages
of Dean Vortices have been studied numerically to predict its usage for overcoming the
limitations of membrane based separation processed. Dean vortices can be realized in Curved
tubes or Coiled tubes. Coiled tubes have an immense application potential in industry due to
their compact design and high heat and mass transfer coefficients due to Dean Vortices.
Several studies have been carried out by various authors [6, 7, and 8] after the pioneering
work of Dean [9] to understand the flow properties in curved tubes and its applications.

Gas liquid contactors are membrane based arrangements in which gas and liquid are
present on the opposite side of the membrane and gas gets dissolved in the liquid after
diffusing through the membrane. This kind of system has several applications and is
becoming a significant field of research. Hollow fibre membrane modules based gas removal
provides several advantages over conventional techniques like bubble column and packed bed
like high surface area per unit contact volume, independent control of gas and liquid flow and
completely eliminating problems like flooding, loading, weeping and entrainment problems.
Moreover it is very easy to scale up or down. Since the major driving force is concentration
difference, significant saving can be achieved in terms of pressure drop. The saving that these
hollow fibre membrane modules provide in terms of weight, cost and operational simplicity
makes them a good choice for applications like offshore oil platforms. Eiseman [10] was the
first to use micro porous membrane for contacting gas-liquid contacting using
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) for oxygenation of blood. Removal of CO2 has been a major
issue since a long time and several factors have been studied in this respect like membrane
material, ideal solvent etc. Qi and Cussler [11, 12] first proposed the use of hollow fibre
membrane module for removing acidic gas like CO2 using NaOH.

The industrial applications of hollow fibre membrane module based gas liquid contactors
are limited due to low mass transfer inspite of several other advantages. The use of hollow
fibre membrane module has so far been limited to straight tubes with shell and tube kind of
design. Liquid flows inside the tube and gas on the shell side. Change in the module geometry
has been tried in the form of transverse flow of rectangular cross-section [13] and recently
some authors have started focusing on use of Dean Vortices as flow instability for enhancing
the mass transfer using coiled module. Some authors have investigated the effect of using
cross flow for enhancing mass transfer inside the tube. Ghogomu e. al. [14] compared four
geometries, Straight tube, helically coiled, twisted and meander shaped. They reported that
flux enhancement in case of all curved geometries was 1.4 times as compared to straight
geometry. Liu et al. [15] reported the enhancement of oxygenation of water in case helical
coil as compared to straight tube. They also predicted the dependency of mass transfer on
various factors like wind angle, tube diameter and coil diameter and predicted the correlation
for Sherwood number. The maximum enhancement in mass transfer obtained by them was 3.5
times. Similar study has also been performed by Moulin et al.[16] where they reported an
enhancement in the mass transfer coefficient by 2-4 times and predicted the dependency on
Dean number.

A new geometry called Coiled Flow Inverter (CFI) was reported by Saxena and Nigam
[17] which was based on the principle of inversion of flow by changing the direction of
centrifugal force in helical coil. Vashisht et al. [18] performed an exhaustive study on the
fluid flow, heat transfer and mass transfer in CFI. Kumar et. al.[19] reported an increment of
12-25% in heat transfer in CFI as compared to helical coil using pilot plant scale experimental
study. Mridha and Nigam [26] used numerical technique to show that heat transfer augments
by 4-13% in CFI as compared to coiled tube due to flow inversion.

In the present study, use of CFI geometry has been tested as a hollow fibre membrane
module and the effect of flow inversion has been predicted numerically. The most important
study in case of a coiled geometry is the enhancement of mass transfer in terms at the cost of
energy expenditure and the velocity profile that causes this enhancement. For this purpose, the
cross-sectional study of velocity profile has been done to establish the flow inversion. Mass
transfer studies have been performed for different geometries and results have been compared
for laminar flow. Performance per unit energy has then been studied in terms of number of
number of merits.

Theory

Dean flow in curved tubes

The phenomena of secondary flow were first reported by Dean [16] for a curved tube.
When a viscous fluid flows through a curved tube, it has a characteristic radial velocity. The
maxima of the velocity are shifted outwards. The fluid in the central and inner part of the tube
towards the coil experiences a force towards the outer wall due the pressure difference that
exists between the two sides of the tube. This movement of the fluid is perpendicular to the
axial movement of the fluid and forms two rotating pair of vortices called Dean Vortices. It is
this movement which brings about the randomness inside the tube which leads to better
mixing of the liquid from wall to the centre, thus enhancing heat and mass transfer.
 For a coiled geometry, a new dimensionless number is used in place of Reynolds number
to characterize the curvature effect. It is called the Dean Number

dt
N De  N Re (1)
dc

Where NDe is the dean number, NRe is the Reynolds number, dt is the tube diameter and dc
is the coil diameter. The dean number gives a measure of the secondary flow as it incorporates
the effect of curvature ratio (dc/dt) which is a major determining factor for secondary flow.

For a helically coiled geometry, the effect of pitch is taken into consideration by using
modified dean number in place of dean number

dt
N' De  N Re (2)
d'c

Where d’c is the effective coil diameter defined in terms of coil diameter (dc) and pitch (b)
as

b
d ' c  d c [1  ( )] (3)
πd c

Nigam et al provided a detailed study of flow patterns inside the tube for a helically coiled
tube. They showed that the performance of a helical coil is optimum at a curvature ratio (dc/dt)
of 10.

Mass Transfer in gas-liquid contactor:

In the present study, the mass transfer process of oxygen and carbon dioxide has been
studied by dissolving in water. The physical model considered is as shown in Fig. 1. Pure gas
has been assumed on the shell side. The transfer of gas takes place in 3 steps- diffusion
through gas phase, diffusion through membrane and mass transfer through liquid film. The
overall mass transfer equation is as follows:

1 1 1 1
   (4)
K KGm KMm KL

where KL, KM, and KG are individual mass transfer coefficients in the liquid, gas and
membrane and m is the phase equilibrium. However due to the assumption of presence of
pure gas, no resistance is present in the gas phase. The resistance in the membrane phase is
small in micro porous membrane as compared to the resistance in the liquid phase and hence
has been neglected in the present study.
 Therefore the effective resistance to mass transfer lies in the liquid phase which has been
studied

K= KL (5)

The mass transfer for a hollow fibre membrane module is given by Levesque correlation

Sh = 1.62(NRedt/L) 0.33(Sc)0.33 (6)

where Sh is the Sherwood number, Sc is the Schmidt number and L is the length of the
tube.

However in case of helical coil, parameters like curvature ratio, pitch play an important
role. Moulin et al [22] predicted the correlation for Sherwood number for helical coil as

Sh = 0.14NDe0.75Sc0.33 (7)

Liu et al [21] showed that the correlation for Sherwood for Sherwood number was

Sh = fNDeα Sc0.33 (8)

where the value of α varied from 0.35 to 0.55 based on the wind angle.

Similarly other authors have shown that for a helically coiled tube the value of α varies
from .33 to 0.8.

Numerical Model

Model Equation:

Based on the above assumptions the equation of mass transfer inside the tube can be
written as:-

CA  2CA DA CA DA  2CA

vz  DA    RA (9)
z r 2 r r z 2

Where CA is the liquid phase concentration of the gas, DA is the diffusion coefficient and
vZ is the axial velocity given by

r
v Z  2U L [1  ( ) 2 ] (10)
R

Where UL is the average liquid velocity in the tube.

 The boundary condition is given by

z = 0, CA = 0

C A
r = 0, 0
r

r = R, CA = CA,m

Where CA,m is the concentration at the membrane boundary towards the tube in the liquid
phase measured using the Henry’s constant for the gas.

The mass transfer coefficient was calculated using

QL (C A,out  CA,in )
K= (11)
A ΔC LM

Where ∆CLM is the log mean concentration difference given by

(CA in  CLout )  (CLout  CLin )

* *
ΔCLM  (12)
Ln((C A in  CLout )/(C A in  CLout ))
* *

and A is the total effective membrane area in the module, CA* is the equilibrium
concentration of the gas at inlet (CA*in) or outlet (CA*out) calculated using Henry’s law. The
value of diffusion constant and Henry’s constant were taken from Perry’s Handbook.. The
value of the CA,m was calculated using Henry’s law in terms of mass fraction of the gas phase
in equilibrium condition for the purpose of numerical simulation

Numerical solution of equations

In case of CFI, the bends introduced are at 90˚ and the arms of the helical coil are of equal
length. Cartesian coordinate system has been used for numerical simulation of all the
geometries. At the inlet fluid enters at a constant velocity and free from the gas to be
absorbed. A constant wall concentration is maintained for the gas since it is a single gas
system and pressure is assumed to remain constant on the shell side. Mass transfer and flow
profile develop as the fluid moves through the tube. Constant temperature has been assumed.
Density has been calculated using volume weighted mixing law and viscosity has been
predicted using mass weighted mixing law The numerical equations were solved using
species transport model of the commercial software Fluent in 3 dimensional master Cartesian
coordinate system.
Grid system and geometry

An unstructured non uniform grid system is used to discretize the governing equations.
Fig. 2 shows the grid for one cross section.A hexahedral grid system has been used for the
three dimensional storage.

First order Upwind Scheme has been used for solving momentum, species and energy
transfer while SIMPLE algorithm has been used for solving the pressure velocity coupling.
The under relaxation factor for pressure is 0.3, for density 0.9, for body forces 0.9, for
momentum 0.7 and for species 0.9 for accelerating the convergence. The final discrete
equation for any property is the sum of linear equations resulting from neighboring nodes.

Fig. 3 shoes the three different geometries that have been studied in the present work –
coiled flow inverter, helical coil and straight tube. Results have been compared for equal
lengths and tube diameter of the three geometries to neglect their effect. The pitch of the coils
were kept constant at 10.6 mm. Flow was analyzed for a large number of Reynolds numbers
within the laminar regime.

In order to study the effect of bends and curvature ratio, three coiled flow inverters with
three bends and three different curvature ratios were created while one 6 bend coiled flow
inverter was created. Equivalent helical coils were created to compare the results. Table1
shows the various geometries that were created using commercial software Gambit. The
meshed geometry was then imported to Fluent for simulation

Convergence and grid test

The residual convergence criteria for ux, uy, uz and p were taken as 10-5 and for
mass fraction of species was kept at 10-8. Grid test was performed by meshing the geometries
with finer mesh till the change in the species mass fraction was negligible. For each 90˚ bend,
5000, 10000 and 15000 hexahedral cells were created and it was found that 10000 hexahedral
cells provided efficient and fairly accurate convergence.

Results and Discussion

Velocity profile

In the gas-liquid membrane contactors for gas separation, liquid is the dominating fluid as
far as physical and flow properties are concerned. It is the velocity profile which actually
controls the rate of mass transfer and hence needs to be studied for understanding the
enhancement of mass transfer. As can be seen from the Fig 4, the velocity profile varies with
varying dean number. On increasing the dean number the maxima of the velocity curve moves
towards the outer wall of the tube due to secondary flow. On further increasing the velocity
profile the parabolic shape is spread out near the outer wall.
 It is this secondary flow which enhances the mass transfer in curved geometries like
helical coil. As can be seen in comparison to Straight tube Fig 5, the velocity profile for
helical coil is much spread out, giving a much uniform distribution of concentration of gas at
the centre as compared to straight tube and hence a significant improvement of mass transfer.

In case of Coiled Flow Inverter, further improvement is observed due to inversion of the
flow. As can be seen from the Fig. 6 an inversion of 90˚ leads to flow across the already
existing secondary flow due to secondary flow and hence better mixing. The concentration
profile becomes much flatter and driving force for mass transfer, i.e. concentration difference
increases after every bend.

Enhancement on mass transfer due to dean vortices in oxygenation of water

Several authors have reported significant improvement in mass transfer in case of helical
coils. However the performance of helical coil in terms of Dean Vortices on cross sectional
plane is not properly understood since most of the literature has reported only flux
enhancement and better mass transfer. In the present study, we have tried to pictorially depict
how the secondary flow enhances the mass transfer. It has already been discussed that
secondary flow leads to movement of fluid from the outside of the wall towards the centre of
the wall. Along with the movement of water, oxygen is also transported convectively along
with diffusion. Hence two analysis has been performed for showing the effect of secondary
flow- first the flow has been analyzed at constant velocity at various angles on inlet and then
cross sectional flow has been analyzed at at constant angle from inlet and varying velocity to
show how transport due to diffusion changes with velocity. Fig. 7 shows the transport of
oxygen species at various angles from inlet through convective transport. Fig. 8 shows how
diffusion effect changes velocity.

The results of simulations were first verified against the known experimental results for
Sherwood number vs. Modified Dean number by Moulin et al and Liu et al. Fig. 9 shows the
result of two numerical simulations against experimental results for both helical coil and
straight tube.

As can be seen from the figure, the results for straight tube fit with the known
experimental results. As predicted by experimental results, the results of simulation showed
an increment of 2-5 times as compared to straight tube in helical coil .The slope of the curve
was found to be steeper as compared to straight tube showing that that higher dean number
leads to better enhancement in case of helical coils. However some discrepancies were seen in
the results of helical coil simulation and experimental results. The experimental results were
themselves found to be quite scattered as compared to straight tube. The main reason that
could be assigned to this phenomenon is that mass transfer in helical coil does not only
depend on Reynolds number but a number of other parameters like diameter of coil and pitch
of coil. To predict their contribution to Sherwood number, a linear regression model was
taken as

Log (Sh) = A+BxLog(Re)+CxLog(P/dt)+DxLog(dt/L)+ExLog(dc/dt)

The experimental results were regressed on the above model. Fig. 10 shows the result of
regression, the dependence on various parameters and the fit of numerical results on the
regressed model. The correlation coefficient of the fit was 0.93. It can be seen that the
exponent of Re is found to be 0.64, i.e. significantly higher than that for straight tube. The
coefficient of (dc/dt) is found to be negative which is expected since on increasing the
diameter of the coil, the Sherwood is found to reduce and approach to the value of straight
tube.

Fig. 11 shows the comparison of mass transfer in the 3 geometries –coiled flow inverter,
helical coil and straight tube. All the three geometries were simulated for velocities in the
laminar region and for same geometric parameters. Mass transfer for helical coil and coiled
flow inverter was up to four times higher than that as compared to straight tube of the same
length. This significant improvement was due to secondary flow as explained above. In
comparison to helical coil, the oxygenation of water in case of CFI was 10-19% more. This
significant increase was due to flow inversion as reported by Saxena and Nigam (REF).
Significant increment was observed in case of CFI even after first bend. The dependence of
Sherwood number on Dean number and hence on velocity was found to be 0.51 for helical
coil and 0.53 for coiled flow inverter.

Effect of curvature

The influence of change of curvature ratio on mass transfer performance can be seen for
Coiled Flow Inverter and helical coil in the Fig 12 and Fig 13. Three geometries were
modeled with curvature ratio 7.75, 10 and 15. The curvature ratio was changed by increasing
the radius of the coil while keeping the diameter of the tube constant. It was found that on
increasing the curvature ratio, the mass transfer performance of the tube decreases. This can
be understood by considering that on increasing the curvature ratio, the effect of secondary
flow reduces since the centrifugal force that causes the secondary flow is a curvature radius
dependent force and is inversely proportional to the radius of the coil. Hence on increasing the
radius of the coil while keeping the tube radius constant (as in the fig.), the secondary flow
decreases and so the mass transfer performance. The Sherwood number was found to change
as much as 15% on increasing the curvature ratio from 7.75 to 15

Mass transfer enhancement in carbonation of water

Similar to the oxygenation of water, carbonation of water was tested on numerical model.
The model was tested for two different lengths. One corresponding to the length of 3 bend
CFI and the other corresponding to 6 bend CFI. It was found that in both the cases the mass
transfer performance was same as that found in the oxygenation operation. Both the coiled
geometries were found to have an enhanced mass transfer as compared to straight tube for
both the length of the tubes. However it was noted that performance of CFI was significantly
higher as compared to helical coil in case of carbonation operation. Almost similar
enhancement was observed both in the case of 3 bend CFI as well as 6 bend CFI. Fig 14 and
Fig 15

Another significant parameter of measuring the mass transfer operation is the amount of
gas removed per quantity of solvent that was used. Since CO2 dissolves much more in water
as compared to oxygen, the total quantity of gas absorbed was found to significantly higher in
case of CO2 although this difference could not be seen while comparing the mass transfer
coefficient and Sherwood number. From operations point of view, this result is quite
significant since it explains the amount of solvent that need to be passed per second to absorb
a given quantity of gas. Since the hollow membrane gas absorbers have a very high scale up
ratio, this result can predict the exact amount of solvent that will be needed at the industrial
scale. Fig 16 shows amount of gas absorbed per second varying with flow rate. As can be
expected, the amount of CO2 absorbed is much higher as compared to oxygen. How it can be
noted that this difference goes on increasing as we increase the liquid flow rate.

Pressure drop consideration

Although the coiled geometries show much better mass transfer property as compared to
straight tube, an important consideration in such geometries is the pressure drop that takes
place in these geometries. Due to additional viscous dissipation by Dean vortices in curved
tubes, pressure drop is much higher as compared to straight tube. Fig. 17 shows the result of
pressure drop for the three geometries. It can be seen that the pressure drop for curved
geometries is more than that of straight tube as is expected. On increasing the velocity these
difference further increases since increase of velocity leads to higher secondary flow and
hence more viscous dissipation. Hence although the curved geometries provide the advantage
of higher mass transfer for same area, there is a substantial loss on the energy front in the
form of pressure drop. However it was noted that although Coiled Flow Inverter showed
much higher performance as compared to helical coil, the pressure drop in CFI was found to
be slightly less as compared to helical coil. Hence CFI provides better mass transfer
performance compared to helical coil at no extra pressure cost.

Shear Stress consideration

Friction factor fs for flow in a tube is defined by the wall shear stress

τ= (fs/2) (ρv2) (13)

where (fs/2) is given by

(fs/2) = 8/Re (14)

Friction factor for helical coil can be estimated by the correlation given by Mishra and
Gupta [25].

(fc/fs) = 1+0.033(Log (De’)) 4 (15)

Where fc is the friction factor due of the helical coil

Fig. 18 shows the variation of shear stress with Reynolds number for numerical simulation
as compared against the known correlation. The results of numerical simulation were found to
be in good agreement with known correlation. Moreover it can be seen that the result for
helical coil and CFI are almost coincident. The values for CFI were found to be slightly less
than the values of shear stress for helical coil. The reason for this can be understood by the
Fig 19.

It can be seen that after the angle 1440˚, there is a slight reduction in the shear stress of
CFI, this is because angle 1440˚ coincides with the first bend of CFI. Thus the slight reduction
of pressure and shear stress in case of CFI as compared to helical coil can be attributed to
reduction in shear stress at the bend.

It has been shown that CFI gives significant improvement in mass transfer as compared to
straight tube. However this is at the cost of significant energy in the form of pressure. Hence it
is necessary to compare the performance per unit energy in case of CFI as compared to
straight tube. For this a new parameter ‘number of merits’ has been defined as

Sh(CFI)
Sh(st.tube)
Number of merits = fCFI (16)
fst tube

Fig. 20 shows the number of merits for CFI as compared to straight tube. The number of
merits is greater than one. This means that the extra energy taken by CFI as compared to
straight tube in terms of pressure drop is less when compared to the enhancement in mass
transfer provided by CFI as compared to straight tube. Moreover it can be seen that the
number of merits is decreasing with increase in velocity.
Conclusions

Velocity profile has been successfully modeled for straight tube, helical coil and coiled flow
inverter and change in velocity contour has been shown on the bends for coiled flow inverter.
Convective transport of oxygen with secondary flow has been shown by analyzing oxygen
concentration at various cross sections. The effect of changing velocity on gas concentration
at a constant angle showed that at lower velocity the transport takes place by diffusion while
at higher velocity the secondary convective transport becomes significant. Experimental
results of enhancement of oxygenation of water in helical coil as compared to straight tube
have been numerically verified. The dependence of Sherwood number in helical coil on
various geometrical parameters has been analyzed using regression analysis of experimental
results and following correlations have been proposed -

Sh= 0.532(Re) 0.64(dt/L) 0.33(P/dt) (dt/dc)0.32Sc0.33

Straight tube, helical coil and coiled flow inverter have been compared for mass transfer and
it has been shown that helical coil showed an improvement in mass transfer by the factor of 2-
5 as compared to straight tube while coiled flow inverter showed 10-19% increment as
compared to helical coil. Increase in curvature ratio was found to reduce mass transfer in both
helical coil and coiled flow inverter. Mass transfer performance for carbonation was found to
be almost similar to oxygenation. Amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide being transported
with varying solvent flow rate has been numerically predicted. Pressure drop in helical coil
and coiled flow inverter was found to be significantly higher as compared to straight tube.
Similarly Shear stress in helical coil and coiled flow inverter was found to be higher and was
compared to known correlation. However it was found that shear stress and pressure drop for
coiled flow inverter were slightly less due to decrease in shear stress after the bend.
Performance per unit extra energy consumed by coiled flow inverter compared to straight
tube, represented by number of merits, was found to be between 1.61 and 1.92
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 Figures

Fig. 1. Model of diffusion in a membrane based gas

liquid contactor
 Fig. 2. Meshing of the tube at a cross section

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 3. The three geometries: (a) Helical coil (b) Coiled flow inverter (c) Straight tube
Fig. 4. Velocity contour for helical coil: (a) Vin=0.02336 m/s (b) Vin = 0.07 m/s (c) Vin = 0.16
m/s (d) Vin = 0.3 m/s
Fig. 5. Velocity contour for Straight tube: (a) Vin=0.02336 m/s (b) Vin = 0.16 m/s
Fig. 6. Velocity contour for Coiled flow inverter: (a) Inlet (b) φ = 180˚ (c) φ = 270˚ (d) After 1st
bend (e) After 3 bends
Fig. 7. Species transport due to secondary flow at constant inlet velocity V= 0.2 m/s (a) inlet (b)
φ = 180º (c) φ = 360º (d) φ = 540º (e) φ = 720º (f) φ = 900º (g) φ = 1080º (h) φ = 1260º
Fig. 8. Convective transport vs Diffusion transport: Species mass fraction at 360˚ with various
velocities (a) Vin= 0.02336 m/s (b) Vin = 0.07 m/s (c) Vin = 0.13 m/s (d) Vin = 0.3 m/s
Fig. 9. Experimental result vs simulation result: Straight tube simulation and helical coil
simulation matched against experimental simulation
 Fig. 10. Result of regression: Sherwood number from experiment (blue) and simulation (red)
plotted against correlation from regression Sh = 0.532x(Re) .64(P/dt) (dt/L) .33(Sc)0.33 (dc/dt) -0.32
Fig. 11. Comparison of geometries: Sherwood number vs Dean number for oxygenation of water
in Coiled flow inverter (6 bends), helical coil and Straight tube of identical length
Fig. 12. Effect of curvature ratio in helical coil: for λ=7.75, 10 and 15
Fig. 13. Effect of curvature ratio in Coiled flow inverter: for λ=7.75, 10 and 15
Fig. 14. Comparison of geometries: Sherwood number vs Dean number for carbonation of water
in Coiled flow inverter (3 bends), Helical coil and Straight tube of identical length
Fig. 15. Comparison of geometries: Sherwood number vs Dean number for carbonation of water
in Coiled flow inverter (6 bends), Helical coil and Straight tube of identical length
Fig. 16. Oxygenation vs Carbonation: Amount of gas absorbed with respect to flow of solvent
Fig. 17. Pressure drop comparison: Pressure drop in CFI (6bends), helical coil, Straight tube of
same length and same internal diameter (dt= 3.2 mm)
Fig. 18. Shear stress comparision: Shear Stress in CFI (3bends), helical coil, Straight tube of
same length and same internal diameter (dt= 3.2 mm) with varying Reynolds number
Fig. 19. Shear stress comparision: Shear Stress in CFI (3bends) and helical coil at various angles
from inlet with constant inlet velocity = 0.13 m/s
Fig. 20. Number of merits: Comparison of enhancement of performance per unit extra energy
consumed by CFI as compared to St. tube
 Tables

Geometry Length Number of turns di-dc (mm)

Helical Coil .7 0837m 8 3.2-24.8

Straight Tube .70837m 0 3.2-24.8

Helical coil 1.4167 m 16 3.2-24.8

Coiled Flow Inverter 1.4167 m 16, 3 bend 3.2-24.8

Helical Coil 1.77882 m 16 3.2-32

Coiled Flow Inverter 1.77882 m 16,3 bend 3.2-32

Helical Coil 2.58342 m 16 3.2-48

Coiled Flow Inverter 2.58342 m 16,3 bend 3.2-48

Straight Tube 2.4 0 3.2-24.8

Helical Coil 2.4 28 3.2-24.8

Coiled Flow Inverter 2.4 28, 3 bends 3.2-24.8

Table 1: Geometries created in Gambit software