Fifth International Engineering Conference on Developments in Civil & Computer Engineering Applications 2019 - (IEC2019) -
Erbil – IRAQ
Temperature Distribution Measurements along Helical
Coiled Tube Heat Exchanger with Effect of Air
Injection
Ahmed R.Kreem Ali Baqir
AL-Furat AL-awsat Technical University AL-Furat AL-awsat Technical University
AL-Najaf , Iraq AL-Najaf , Iraq
Ahmedqom90iq@gmail.com coj.alish@atu.edu.iq
Abstract__Present paper try to clarify important statement that has
not been addressed in the literature which is the influence of tiny air
bubbles injection on temperature distribution along a vertical shell
and helical coiled tube heat exchanger. Four thermocouples were
installed along the shell side of the heat exchange unite in addition
to the inlet and outlet thermocouples. Experiments performed with
three different shell water flow rate (4, 6, and 8 l/m) and each flow
rate was performed with five different air flow rate (2, 4, 6, 8, and
10 l/m) with constant air temperature 18 ⁰ C. The flow rate of the
coiled tube (hot fluid) was kept constant at 2 l/m. The inlet
temperature of fluid (water) in both coiled tube and shell were kept
constant at 37 ⁰ C and 17 ⁰ C respectively. The obtained results
showed that a mutual thermal mixing was take place once the air as
tiny bubbles were injected in the shell side of the heat exchanger.
Hence, a high heat transfer rate was recorded and indicated by the
sudden raising of the temperature along the heat exchanger.
Key words__ shell and helical coiled tube heat exchanger,
temperature distribution, sparger, air bubble injection, void fraction
I. INTRODUCTION
Any attempt to improve thermal performance of heat
exchangers lead to creating additional pressure drop mainly as
well as to cost, energy, material, and weight such as using hard
turblators which comprise twisted tape, corrugated tubes, wavy
strips, barbed wires, springs, etc. Aforementioned turbulators
seriously increase value of pressure drop along the heat
exchangers. Consequently, any attempt to decrease the pressure
drop value leads to reduce the enhancement of heat transfer. So,
experts always interested in the enhanced thermal performance of
heat exchangers with the minimum pressure drop as possible as.
Tiny air bubble injection has been investigated by some
researchers such as [1] as one of the promising techniques for heat
transfer enhancement with the minimum possible amount of
pressure drop. First direct application was by [2] where
experimentally injected sub-millimeter air bubbles inside a shell
and helically coiled tube heat exchanger to improve its thermal
effectiveness. A holed spiral tube was employed to generate sub-
millimeters air bubbles. Their obtained results give a hard
978-1-7281-4377-4/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
Hamed Balassim Mahood
University of Missan
Misan , Iraq
hbmahood@yahoo.com
influence on heat transfer enhancement due to air the bubbles. [3]
Investigated experimentally the effect of the air bubbles on heat
transfer in a helical coiled tube heat exchanger. They observed
that the injected air bubbles into the coiled tube side leads to less
heat transfer enhancement than the air injection into the shell side
of heat exchanger. [4] studied experimentally the effect of air
bubble injection on Nussle number (Nu) for the same heat
exchanger of [2]. The results indicated that the Nusselt number
improved about 50 – 328 %. . [5] Studied experimentally the
effect of air bubbles on the thermal performance of a horizontal
helical coiled tube heat exchanger. The results showed that NTU
has enhanced by 1.3-4.3 time, the exergy loss has increased
from1.8-14.2 times and the maximum effectiveness obtained due
to the air bubbles injection was 0.815. The influence of air bubble
injection on dimensionless exergy destruction, NTU, and
effectiveness of a vertical double-pipe heat exchanger was
investigated experimentally by [6]. Nussle number, non
dimensional energy destruction and effectiveness were enhanced
about 57%, 30%, and 45% respectively. Air injection methods
(cross air injection and parallel injection) a shell and tubes heat
exchanger were studied experimentally by [7]. The results
confirmed that the cross air injection technique has a notable
effect on effectiveness, overall heat transfer coefficient, and NTU
than the parallel method.
From the literature, there is no clarification for the
temperature distribution along the shell side due to air bubble
injection. The present study is coming to clarify the effect of the
injected tiny air bubbles on the temperature distribution along a
vertical helical coiled tube heat exchanger. Five different air flow
rates, three various shell side flow rates (cold fluid) and invariant
coil side flow rate (hot fluid) under constant temperature
deference were investigated.
II. EXPERIMENTAL WOR
A. Experimental Apparatus and Air Injection Method
Generally, experimental set-up see Fig. 1 and fig.2
2comprises of three main units: (i) a cooling unit to provide cold
85
 Fifth International Engineering Conference on Developments in Civil & Computer Engineering Applications 2019 - (IEC2019) -
Erbil – IRAQ

water into shell side. This unite involves water storage tank,
thermostat, expansion valve, compressor, evaporator, refrigerant
R-22, and, condenser. (ii) A heating unit to provide hot water for
coiled tube. This unite comprises water storage tank, electrical
heater, watt meter and variac. (iii) Test section Fig. 3 which
consists from helical coiled tube, PVC shell, EPE foam as a
thermal insulator, and a porous sparger to generator air bubbles
with an average porous size of 100 micrometer placed in the
bottom of shell side. Aquarium air pump HAILEA ACO-318 was
used to supply fresh air. Shell and coiled tube dimensions are
tabulated in table I. The general view and the schematic view are
illustrates in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 respectively. Flow configuration
of the system is counter flow as clarify in Fig. 3, PICOLOG 6 TC-
08 data logger with resolution (0.1⁰ C) and 8 K-type
thermocouples were employed to measure the temperatures.
Three Panel type rotameters used to measure flow rates.

Fig. 1 A general view of experimental set-up

Fig. 2 a schematic view of experimental set-up: 1.Shell tube, 2. Helical coiled tube, 3. Aquarium Air Pump, 4.cold water tank, 5.evaporator, 6. Compressor, 7.condensor,
8. Water pump, 9. rotameter, 10. Variac, 11.watt meter, 12.hot water tank, 13. Electric heater. 14. PC, 15. Data logger, 16. Digital manometer, 17. Air vent, 18.
Thermometer for air temperature.

86
 Fifth International Engineering Conference on Developments in Civil & Computer Engineering Applications 2019 - (IEC2019) -
Erbil – IRAQ

TABLE I : HEAT EXCHANGER SPECIFICATIONS

Tube Do (mm) t (mm) H (mm) L (mm) Dc (mm) di (mm) N P (mm)
Shell 152.4 3 500 - - - - -

Coiled tube - 1.6 380 3939 (bco) 114 4.4 11 30

B. Experimental Procedure
= + + ⋯+ (1)
Experiments in the present study were carried out with
some different water and air flow rates for shell side as presented Table III shows the uncertainty of the parameters measured in the
in Table II. While water flow rate of coiled tube kept constant at
2 l/m. Water inlet temperature of coiled tube (hot fluid) and shell experiments
tube (cold fluid) were kept constant at 37 ⁰ C and 17 ⁰ C
respectively. The flow in the heat exchanger was counter flow.
Temperature difference between inlet and outlet of the air was
measured to be around 0.3 ⁰ C. Therefore, the effect of air
temperature considered negligible at any degree on shell side.
III RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Uncertainty of Instruments
Measurement uncertainty performed to estimate the error
ratio between experiments results and true value because of the
measuring instruments (thermocouples and flow meters),
operator, environment and other reasons. The uncertainty of
measurement in the present experiments is calculated by the
following equation: Fig. 3 schematic view of test section

TABLE II. TEST CONDITION

water flow
shell and coiled tube inlet water flow rate of
rate of coil Air flow rate (LPM)
temperature (⁰ C) shell side (LPM)
side(LPM)
T coil = 37 ⁰ C 4 0, 2, 4 ,6, 8, 10

T shell = 17 ⁰ C 2 6 0, 2, 4 ,6, 8, 10

8 0, 2, 4 ,6, 8, 10

87
 Fifth International Engineering Conference on Developments in Civil & Computer Engineering Applications 2019 - (IEC2019) -
Erbil – IRAQ
TABLE III. UNCERTAINTY OF THE INSTRUMENTS
Characteristics Unit
Uncertainty of temperature measurement
Hot fluid outlet temperature, coil ⁰C
Hot fluid inlet temperature, coil ⁰C
Cold fluid inlet temperature, shell ⁰C
Cold fluid outlet temperature, shell ⁰C
Cold fluid along column side T1, shell ⁰C
Cold fluid along column side T2, shell ⁰C
Cold fluid along column side T3, shell ⁰C
Cold fluid along column side T4, shell ⁰C
Uncertainty of the volumetric flow rate measurement (l/min)
Water flow rate
Air flow rate
B. Temperature Distribution
As mentioned above, the temperature distribution and
behavior of a vertical helical coiled tube heat exchanger with the
effect of air injection was not researched yet. However, in the
present short paper an attempt to clarify briefly such important
issue to understand the mechanism by which the injected air
bubbles make their effect on the entire thermal performance of
heat exchanger is presented.
Figures from 4 to 6 show the transient behavior of the shell
side temperature and coil side temperature under different air and
shell side flow rates, constant coil side flow rate and invariant
temperature difference. These figures actually represented the
experimental data that recorded directly by the data logger used
during the experiments. In general, while the inlet temperature of
the coil and shell remain constant during the whole process, a
sudden change in the temperature along the heat exchanger is
obvious. The temperature distribution along the heat exchanger
height begins to increase directly after air injection (2 l/m) into
shell side the coil and shell remain constant during the coil and
shell remain constant during the whole process, a sudden change
in the temperature along the heat exchanger is obvious. The
temperature distribution along the heat exchanger height begins
to increase directly after air injection (2 l/m) into shell side.
However, this rises of temperature is developed with the increase
of the airflow rate (4, 6, 8, and 10 l/m) until achieving the steady
state conditions at the end. Along with this the out let temperature
of the coil (hot fluid) is consistence decreased with time until
reaching its minimum but invariant value at the end. In spite of
the increase in the temperature along the heat exchanger
Uncertainty
±0.4
±0.4
±0.4
±0.5
±0.4
±0.5
±0.4
±0.4
l/m ± 0.25
l/m ± 0.2
is distinctive at low air flow rate (2 l/min), the temperature
becomes the same at all point along the height with increasing the
air flow rate. This could be justified by that the natural movement
of air bubbles due to bouncy force, results by the difference in
density between air and water, lead to intensive thermal mixing
of the water inside the shell which sustain the temperature
difference at it’s the maximum level. This, of course, leads to
increase the heat exchange between the hot and the cold fluid and
hence increase the thermal efficiency of the heat exchanger. In
addition to the interactions of a huge numbers of bubbles results
in breaking the boundary layers formed the over the immersed
coil in the flow. Furthermore, the injected air play a positive role
on increasing the turbulent level of water flow in the shell and
raising the shell flow Reynolds number. These reasons, however,
improve the heat transfer rate along heat exchanger.
The figures also illustrate that transient time is decreased
with increasing the shell flow rate which indicates that the void
fraction has a significant impact on this phenomena. Void fraction
represents the volume that occupied by air in working fluid
(water), which means it is decreased by increasing the shell side
flow rate for invariant air flow rate.
88
 Fifth International Engineering Conference on Developments in Civil & Computer Engineering Applications 2019 - (IEC2019) -
Erbil – IRAQ

IV. CONCLUSION
In the Present paper, temperature distribution along a
vertical shell and helical coiled tube heat exchanger due to the
injection of tiny air bubbles was experimentally studied. In order
to clarify such important statement that has not been addressed in
the literature the results demonstrated that air bubbles mobility
and void fraction value have a significate effect on temperature
behavior and the steady state condition along heat exchanger.
Steady state can be achieved faster as void fraction range is
increased. An intensive thermally mixing of the shell side fluid is
Fig.4 temperature distribution with time along heat exchanger (Qshell=4 l/m)
seen clearly with the increased of the injected air flow rate.
REFERENCES
[1] A. Kitagawa, K. Kosuge, K. Uchida, and Y. Hagiwara, “Heat transfer
enhancement for laminar natural convection along a vertical plate due
to sub-millimeter-bubble injection,” Exp. Fluids, vol. 45, no. 3, pp.
473–484, 2008.
[2] H. Sadighi Dizaji, S. Jafarmadar, M. Abbasalizadeh, and S. Khorasani,
“Experiments on air bubbles injection into a vertical shell and coiled
tube heat exchanger; exergy and NTU analysis,” Energy Convers.
Manag., vol. 103, pp. 973–980, 2015.
[3] A. Moosavi, M. Abbasalizadeh, and H. Sadighi Dizaji, “Optimization
of heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics via air bubble
injection inside a shell and coiled tube heat exchanger,” Exp. Therm.
Fluid Sci., vol. 78, pp. 1–9, 2016.
[4] D. Panahi, “Evaluation of Nusselt number and effectiveness for a
vertical shell-coiled tube heat exchanger with air bubble injection into
shell side,” Exp. Heat Transf., vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 179–191, 2017.
Fig. 5 temperature distribution with time along heat exchanger (Qshell=6 l/m) [5] S. Khorasani and A. Dadvand, “Effect of air bubble injection on the
performance of a horizontal helical shell and coiled tube heat
exchanger: An experimental study,” Appl. Therm. Eng., vol. 111, pp.
676–683, 2017.
[6] S. Pourhedayat, H. Sadighi Dizaji, and S. Jafarmadar, “Thermal-
exergetic behavior of a vertical double-tube heat exchanger with
bubble injection,” Exp. Heat Transf., vol. 00, no. 00, pp. 1–14, 2018.
[7] E. M. S. El-Said and M. M. A. Alsood, “Experimental investigation of
air injection effect on the performance of horizontal shell and multi-
tube heat exchanger with baffles,” Appl. Therm. Eng., vol. 134, no.
September 2017, pp. 238–247, 2018.

Fig.6 temperature distribution with time along heat exchanger (Qshell=8 l/m)

89