International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Analysis of coiled-tube heat exchangers to improve heat transfer rate

with spirally corrugated wall
A. Zachár *
} H-2103, Hungary
Department of Informatics, Szent István University, Páter K. u. 1., Gödöllo

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Steady heat transfer enhancement has been studied in helically coiled-tube heat exchangers. The outer
Available online 1 June 2010 side of the wall of the heat exchanger contains a helical corrugation which makes a helical rib on the
inner side of the tube wall to induce additional swirling motion of fluid particles. Numerical calculations
Keywords: have been carried out to examine different geometrical parameters and the impact of flow and thermal
Spirally corrugated helical pipe boundary conditions for the heat transfer rate in laminar and transitional flow regimes. Calculated results
Heat transfer augmentation have been compared to existing empirical formulas and experimental tests to investigate the validity of
Secondary flow
the numerical results in case of common helical tube heat exchanger and additionally results of the
numerical computation of corrugated straight tubes for laminar and transition flow have been validated
with experimental tests available in the literature. Comparison of the flow and temperature fields in case
of common helical tube and the coil with spirally corrugated wall configuration are discussed. Heat
exchanger coils with helically corrugated wall configuration show 80–100% increase for the inner side
heat transfer rate due to the additionally developed swirling motion while the relative pressure drop
is 10–600% larger compared to the common helically coiled heat exchangers. New empirical correlation
has been proposed for the fully developed inner side heat transfer prediction in case of helically corru-
gated wall configuration.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Helically coiled-tube heat exchangers are one of the most com-
mon equipment found in many industrial applications ranging
from solar energy applications, nuclear power production, chemi-
cal and food industries, environmental engineering, and many
other engineering applications. Heat transfer rate of helically
coiled heat exchangers is significantly larger because of the sec-
ondary flow pattern in planes normal to the main flow than in
straight pipes. Modification of flow is due to the centrifugal forces
(Dean roll cells [1]) caused by the curvature of the tube. Several
studies have been conducted to analyse the heat transfer rate of
coiled heat exchangers in laminar and turbulent flow regimes [2–
6]. Numerical study of laminar flow and forced convective heat
transfer in a helical square duct has been carried out by Jonas Bol-
inder and Sundén [7]. Many authors investigated experimentally
the turbulent heat transfer in helical pipes [8,9]. Further enhance-
ment of heat transfer rate in coiled pipes has great importance in
several industrial applications mainly where the flow regime is
in the laminar or transitional zone like hot water solar energy
applications. There are basically two different concepts to increase
* Tel.: +36 28 522051; fax: +36 28 410804.
E-mail address: zachar.andras@gek.szie.hu
the rate of heat transferred, the first one is the active and the other
one is the passive method. Many different active techniques exist
to increase the heat transfer rate mostly for straight pipes. In case
of passive techniques heat transfer enhancement by chaotic mixing
in helical pipes has great importance and investigated by Kumar
and Nigam [10] and Acharya et al. [11]. Helical screw-tape inserts
have been investigated in straight pipes experimentally by Siva-
shanmugam and Suresh [12]. There is considerable amount of
work reported in the literature on heat transfer augmentation in
straight pipes with different corrugation techniques, helical tape
inserts [13–17]. Experimental investigation of thermosyphon solar
water heater with twisted tape inserts has been carried out by
Jaisankar et al . [18]. According to the author’s knowledge a few
examinations are considered in helically coiled tubes with differ-
ent passive heat transfer augmentation techniques like inside wall
corrugation, helical tape inserts [19] and this question is not stud-
ied numerically at all in the available literature. Experimental
investigations have been conducted in a helical pipe containing in-
side springs to study the heat transfer rate and pressure drop by
Yildiz et al. [20]. Helical corrugation on the surface of a helically
coiled tube possibly increases the heat transfer rate because of
the developed swirling motion. Basic aim of this study is to inves-
tigate the impact of different geometrical parameters of the corru-
gation for the inner side heat transfer rate in case of helical tube

0017-9310/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2010.05.011
 A. Zachár / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939 3929

Nomenclature

cp(x, y, z, T) specific heat function of the working fluid T(x, y, z) temperature function of the water inside the heat ex-
(J kg1 K1) changer coil (°C)
dc diameter of the coil (m) Tw area averaged wall temperature at a specific cross sec-
dp diameter of the pipe (m) tion (°C)
De Dean number (=Re(dp/dc)0.5) Tm mass-flow averaged mean temperature of the fluid at a
h corrugation depth (m) specific cross section (°C)
hi inside heat transfer coefficient (W m2 K1) Tin, Tout area averaged inlet/outlet temperature (°C)
kavg area averaged thermal conductivity at a specific cross U1(x, y, z), U2(x, y, z), U3(x, y, z) velocity component functions into
section (W m1 K1) the three possible directions (m/s)
Nufd peripherally averaged fully developed Nusselt number Vavg area averaged velocity (m/s)
(=qwdp/kavg(Tw  Tm))
p helical pitch of corrugation (m) Greek symbols
pc helical pitch of the coil (m) u angular coordinate normal to the tube cross section (°)
P(x, y, z) pressure field (Pa) g(x, y, z, T) dynamic viscosity function of the working fluid
Pr Prandtl number (=cpg/k) (N s m2)
DP pressure drop (Pa) k(x, y, z, T) thermal conductivity function of the working fluid
qw area averaged wall heat flux at a specific cross section (W m1 K1)
(W m2) q(x, y, z, T) density function of the working fluid (kg m3)
Q flow rate (kg/s)
Re Reynolds number (=qVavgdp/g)
x, y, z Cartesian coordinates (m)

decrease the critical Reynolds number significantly as it was proven

by Vicente et al. [17] for corrugated straight pipes. In this study most
of the investigated flow cases are in laminar flow state because the
Reynolds number of the studied flow cases covers a range from
Re = 100 to Re = 7000 and perhaps for the largest Reynolds number
flow cases (approximately Re = 7000) a small level of turbulence
can be occurred. The momentum equation of the fluid is based on
the three dimensional Navier–Stokes equations. A SIMPLE like
method is applied to solve the momentum and continuity equations.
The dependent variables that describe the present flow situation are
the temperature, T, velocity components Ui in the x, y and z directions
respectively and the pressure field P.

2.1. Conservation equations

Fig. 1. Schematic figure of the corrugated coiled-tube heat exchangers with the The following set of partial differential equations for U1, U2, U3,
following geometrical parameters dp = 20 mm, pc = 40 mm, p = 44.5 mm and P and T as functions of x, y, z describes the flow and temperature
h = 2 mm. field inside a helically coiled heat exchanger. The conservation
equations are formulated in the Cartesian coordinate system be-
heat exchangers. Fig. 1 shows the basic configuration of the studied cause the applied flow solver (Ansys CFX 11.0) uses the Cartesian
heat exchanger coils with helical corrugation. Helically corrugated system to formulate the conservation equations for all (vector Ui
coils with two turns have been investigated to examine the fully and scalar T, P) quantities. Description of the entire geometry of
developed flow state of the corrugated tubes. The corrugation is lo- the studied problem is incorporated into the generated unstruc-
cated on the outer side of the helical pipe which makes a helically tured numerical grid.
spiraling wall on the inner side of the pipe.
2.1.1. Continuity equation
2. Mathematical formulation The continuity equation is formulated in the following manner
in Cartesian coordinate system
This section provides the basic equations that must be solved to @
ðqU i Þ ¼ 0: ð1Þ
describe the velocity field and the temperature distribution inside @xi
the heat exchanger coils. It is well known that, the transition from
laminar to turbulent flow in curved pipes occur much higher critical
Reynolds number (Recrit) than in straight pipes. The critical Reynolds 2.1.2. Momentum equations
number for smooth helical pipes can be estimated by the following The following equation system is the representation of the
pffiffiffi momentum equations in Cartesian coordinate system where
formula found in Srinivasan et al. [21] Recrit ¼ 2100ð1 þ 12 dÞ.
Applying this formula the values of the critical Reynolds number i, j e {1, 2, 3},
in the studied geometrical cases are as follows: d ¼ dpc ¼
d   
@ @P @ @U j
0:015 0:02 0:025
! Recrit ffi 7393; d ¼ 0:34 ! Recrit ffi 8210; d ¼ 0:34 ! Recrit ffi 8933. ðqU j U i Þ ¼  þ g : ð2Þ
0:34 @xi @xj @xi @xi
The physical problem is a steady, three dimensional laminar or tran-
sitional flow configuration. Corrugation and surface roughness can g is the dynamic viscosity and q is the density of the working fluid.
3930 A. Zachár / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939
Fig. 2. Computational domain with parameters dp = 25 mm, pc = 40 mm,
p = 22.25 mm and h = 2.5 mm.
2.1.3. Heat transport equation
The following form of the energy equation is solved to calculate
the temperature field
  
@ @ @T
ðqcp U i TÞ ¼ k ;
@xi @xi @xi
where k is the thermal conductivity function and cp is the specific
heat function of the working fluid at constant pressure. The trans-
port equations have been formulated in a conservative form accord-
ing to Patankar [22]. Temperature dependency of different physical
properties (k, cp, g, q) of the working fluids has been considered to
improve the accuracy of the calculations. Following interpolation
polynomials have been fitted to the available numerical data of
the physical properties of the water and a water–ethylene glycol
mixture used in the numerical calculations
qðTÞ ¼ 998:25  0:123261T  0:00131119T 2  0:0000121406T 3 ;
gðTÞ ¼ 0:00166167  0:0000410857T þ 4:64802  107 T 2
 1:90559  109 T 3 ;
cp ðTÞ ¼ 4222:62  0:694932T þ 0:00624126T 2 þ 8:29448  106 T 3 ;
kðTÞ ¼ 0:568733 þ 0:00196461T  9:77855106 T 2
þ 1:2432  108 T 3 ;
qðTÞ ¼ 1082:9  0:460917T  0:00190268T 2  2:23388  106 T 3 ;
gðTÞ ¼ 0:00873992  0:000269039T þ 3:29295  106 T 2
 1:40149  108 T 3 ;
cp ðTÞ ¼ 3180:17 þ 7:18891T  0:0324592T 2 þ 0:0000922688T 3 ;
kðTÞ ¼ 0:3756 þ 0:000824786T  2:72145  106 T 2
þ 1:02953  108 T 3 :
Eq. (4) are third order polynomials and describe the temperature
dependency of the fluid properties of the water and a water–ethyl-
ene glycol mixture with 50–50% volumetric ratio. Graphical presen-
tation of these polynomials could show that the additional ethylene
glycol makes the mixture more sensitive to the temperature varia-
tion. Physical properties of the water are less sensitive for the tem-
perature variation than the pure ethylene glycol or a 50–50%
mixture of water- ethylene glycol. It is also important to note that
the most sensitive fluid property is the dynamic viscosity. For
example viscosity value of the water is two times larger
(g  0.001 Pa s) at temperature T = 20 °C compared to the viscosity
value (g  0.0005 Pa s) at fluid temperature T = 60 °C. For this rea-
son it is important to consider the variation of the physical proper-
ties of the fluids used in the numerical calculations.
2.2. Domain of discretization
Many different geometrical arrangements of the helical tube heat
exchanger with helical corrugation have been studied on different
grids. A schematic diagram of the studied coil with helical corruga-
tion indicating the computational domain is shown in Fig. 2. The ap-
plied grid can be seen in Fig. 3 is strongly non-uniform near the wall
of the tube to resolve the wall boundary effects. A careful check for
the grid-independence of the numerical solution has been made to
ensure the accuracy and validity of the numerical scheme. Grid-
independence study has been carried out on several geometrical
arrangements. The first study is concentrated on a conventional
helical pipe with non-constant fluid properties. The reason to study
the grid-independence of the numerical results of the common
smooth helical pipes is to ensure the accuracy of the reference calcu-
lations used for comparison purposes with the corrugated cases.
The area averaged outlet temperature, pressure drop and the
Nusselt number have been used to test the independency of the cal-
culation results from the applied grids. The calculations have been
ð3Þ
carried out on six different grids with the following cell numbers
{146,000; 298,099; 766,865; 1,953,825; 2,562,182; 4,488,476} in
case of common (without helical corrugation) helical pipes. Relative
error of the control  quantities
 are
 calculated
 with the formulas
T T  DP DP  Nuc Nuf 
100 outTc out f ; 100 Dc P f , and 100 Nu . The indexes f and c mean
out f f f
the most finest and any other coarser grid resolutions respectively.
Geometrical sizes, initial and boundary conditions of the grid-inde-
pendence test of smooth helical tubes are formulated as follows
dp = 20 mm, dc = 370 mm, pc = 40 mm, Tini = 20 °C, Tin = 20 °C,
Twall = 80 °C, minlet = 0.05 kg/s, {U, V, W}ini = 0 m/s. Calculated results
show that the difference between the outlet temperature on the fin-
est (VI., Tout = 65.77 °C) and on the second finest (V., Tout = 65.78 °C)
grids is approximately 0.005%. Larger difference can be found on
the same grids between the relative errors of pressure drop, (in grid
VI., Dp=15.94 Pa and in grid V., Dp=16.01 Pa) but it is also less than
0.5%. For this reason grid V. has been chosen with 2,562,182 ele-
ments to carry out further numerical calculations in case of common
helical tube heat exchanger with one turn. Grid-independence study
has also been carried out in case of helically corrugated heat exchan-
ger coil with dp = 20 mm, dc = 370 mm, pc = 40 mm, pitch
p = 22.25 mm and corrugation depth h = 2 mm with one turn. Initial
and boundary conditions of the corrugated helical tubes are formu-
lated as follows Tini = 20 °C, Tin = 20 °C, Twall = 60 °C, minlet = 0.05 kg/s,
{U, V, W}ini = 0 m/s. Four different grids have been tested and the re-
sults can be seen in Table 1. It has been found that the calculated
pressure drop is more sensitive for coarsening the grid than the dif-
ferent heat transfer connected quantities (Tout, Tw, Nufd). It can be
concluded that grid resolution larger than 7,200,000 cells in the
studied geometrical cases for helical tube with one turn is approxi-
mately enough to produce physically realistic results independent
ð4Þ from the applied numerical grid. The same basic parameters of grid
generation have been applied to create numerical grids for tubes
with two turns. The number of finite volumes (total number of cells)
is approximately two times larger in case of numerical calculations
carried out for tubes with two turns.
Fig. 3a shows the generated grid near the outlet region of the
corrugated pipe. Fig. 3b presents an enlarged view of the generated
grid at the bottom zone of the outlet and the boundary layer grid
has been shown. 17 layers have been generated to resolve the
boundary region where the physical quantities (velocity and tem-
perature fields) have large gradients normal to the tube wall.
 A. Zachár / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939 3931

Table 1
Relative error of the outlet temperature, pressure drop and the Nusselt number with the studied grid.

Studied grid resolutions of one turn configuration [number of cells]

(I) 6,355,483 (II) 7,775,475 (III) 13,224,881 (IV) 20,143,807
Average outlet temperature (°C) 48.41 48.38 48.28 48.26
Relative error of outlet temperature (%) 0.3 0.24 0.04 –
Pressure drop (Pa) 645 640 613 607
Relative error of pressure drop (%) 6.2 5.4 0.98 –
Inside Nusselt number (Nu) 100.9 99.8 99.4 99.2
Relative error of Nu (%) 1.7 0.6 0.2 –

Fig. 3. One of the applied grids for the calculations and an enlarged view at the bottom of the outlet side of the corrugated coil.

2.3. Initial and boundary conditions
The initial velocity field is zero everywhere in the calculation
domain. The initial state of the temperature field to be considered
is constant everywhere inside the calculation domain. Constant
mass flow is assumed at the inlet position of the heat exchanger
coil. The gradient of the velocity profile and of the temperature
field is assumed to be zero at the end of the outlet. Constant tem-
perature boundary condition is specified for the wall of the heat
exchanger coil because this simplification does not significantly
modify the heat transfer augmentation effects.
2.4. Numerical solution of the transport equations
The corresponding transport equations with the appropriate
boundary conditions have been solved a commercially available
CFD code (Ansys CFX 11.0). A ‘‘High Resolution Up-Wind like”
scheme is used to discretize the convection term in the transport
equations. The resulting large linear set of equations is solved with
an algebraic multi-grid solver. The curve-fitting is carried out in
Mathematica 3.0 environment. The applied grids for the different
geometries have been generated with the Workbench grid genera-
tor. Numerical calculations have been carried out on a network
grid of 15 personal computers. Each PC contains 4 Gb RAM and a
2.8 GHz CPU with four independent core.
2.5. Calculation of the dimensionless quantities
Representing calculated results the following dimensional and
nondimensional quantities have been used. In case of Re number
calculations the value of the density and dynamic viscosity (q, g)
of the working fluids have been calculated by averaging for the en-
tire fluid volume. The thermal conductivity of the fluid (kavg) has
been calculated at a specific cross section. It is important to note
3932 A. Zachár / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939

Measured (Dravid) from ref. 1972 [5] Pr ≈ 4

100 Calculated by Kalb and Seader 1972 [5], Pr=5
Present Study Pr ≈ 5

Peripherally Averaged Nu
39.9
35.5
19.3 28.5

10

1
360 500 650 1030
De number

Fig. 4. Comparison of the numerical results with measured and calculated results in case of smooth helical tubes.

that the modification of the thermal conductivity between the tube
inlet and outlet is not more than 1–2% because of the variation of
the fluid temperature. The wall heat flux and the wall temperature
(qw, Tw) have been calculated between two nearby (5 mm) pre-
specified cross sections of the tube on a nearly cylindrical surface.
The fluid bulk temperature has been calculated with mass flow
averaging, where v  is the fluid bulk velocity at the same cross sec-
tion of the tube
dp qv dp qw
Re ¼ ; Nu ¼ ;
g kav g ðT w  T m Þ
Z Z
1 3.2. Validation of the numerical calculations in case of helically
qw ¼ qdAwall section ;
Awall section
Z ZA
1
Tw ¼ TdAwall section ;
Awall section
Z Z
1 be found in the paper published by Vicente et al. [17]. The mea-
Tm ¼ v TdAcross section :
v Awall section A
3. Model validation
Two completely different problems have been tested based on
measurements available in the literature. All of the necessary
ingredients of the calculations (applied grid resolutions, tempera-
ture dependent physical properties of the applied fluids, boundary
conditions, applicability of the laminar or turbulent modeling) are
investigated to extend the validity of the numerical results to the
corrugated helical tubes.
3.1. Validation of the numerical calculations with experimental results
published in the literature in case of common helicallycoiled-tube heat
exchangers
This subsection contains a series of numerical calculations to
investigate the validity of numerical computations for smooth heli-
cal tubes. Calculations have been carried out with the following
geometrical and material properties, initial and boundary condi-
tions, dp = 20 mm, dc = 370 mm, Tini = 20 °C, Tin = 20 °C, Twall = 60 °C,
minlet = {0.05, 0.04, 0.025, 0.0125} kg/s, {U, V, W}ini = 0 m/s, and
pure water has been chosen for working fluid with temperature
dependent physical properties {cp, k, q, g}. Peripherally averaged
fully developed Nusselt number has been calculated to compare
the results of the numerical computations (present study) with
measured and numerically calculated data available in literature.
The following comparison presented in Fig. 4 is based on the graph
(Fig. 6 on p. 811 in [5]) published by Kalb and Seader [5]. The re-
sults show excellent agreement with the previously measured
and numerically calculated data. Because of easier evaluation of
Fig. 4 Nusselt number values of the numerical calculation of the
current study have been indicated beside the plotted circles. Kalb
and Seader [5] give detailed explanations about the small differ-
ence arising between the calculated results (present study , Kalb
and Seader ) and the measured data ( ). Property variation of
the water can modify the Prandtl number more than 30% between
the inlet and outlet, and in the measurements the Nusselt numbers
have been associated with the mean of the inlet and outlet value of
the Prandtl number. The fluid properties in a fully developed state
are closer to the state arising near the outlet.
corrugated straight tubes
The experimental tests and the presentation of the results can
ð5Þ surements have been simulated with a straight corrugated tube
with 3000 mm length and dp = 18 mm diameter. The depth of the
corrugation is h = 1.03 mm and the pitch is p = 15.95 mm. This tube
has been named ‘‘tube 01” in Ref. [17]. It is important to note that
in the real experiment the tube was lengthier (>5000 mm) but the
measurement point has been located from the upstream electrode
at x/d = 120 = 2160 mm, for this reason a shorter pipe is enough to
model the flow process numerically because the downstream re-
gion is not measured and otherwise it is a fully developed flow do-
main. The geometry of the numerically modeled pipe consists of
four different sections. The first section from the inlet position is
a 100 mm length smooth pipe, what is followed by a 638 mm
length corrugated tube section. After this a 2233 mm length heated
section is followed and finally a short smooth section is located
with 29 mm length at the outlet position. The wall of the first, sec-
ond and fourth (last) sections has been considered thermally adia-
batic, and only the third section is heated with a constant heat flux.
A side view of the generated numerical grid can be seen in Fig. 5a
and a cross sectional view of the same grid presents the boundary
layer and the inner region of the generated grid in Fig. 5b. Fifteen
layers have been created to resolve the large gradients of the flow
variables near the wall inside the corrugated straight tube. A flow
field inside the corrugated straight tube at a specific cross section
in the fully developed region has been presented in Fig. 6. The in-
duced velocity values of the secondary flow field presented in Fig. 6
are in the range 0 and 0.022 m/s. The average arrow length in Fig. 6
means approximately 0.01 m/s.
Dependency of the fully developed heat transfer rate on the
Rayleigh number has been investigated and compared to measured
data (Fig. 5 on p. 659 in [17]) for a corrugated straight tube (‘‘tube
01”) in the transitional flow regime Re = 2470. The applied initial
and boundary conditions are as follows: Tini = 30 °C, Tin = 30 °C,
minlet = 0.027638 kg/s  100 l/h, qw = {9000, 10,500} W m2 in case
 A. Zachár / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939 3933

Fig. 5a. An unstructured grid of a corrugated straight tube with pitch of corrugation p = 15.95 mm and corrugation depth h = 1.03 mm.

Fig. 5b. A cross sectional view of the same grid shown in Fig. 5a.

Fig. 6. Secondary flow field inside a corrugated straight tube with corrugation parameters (p = 15.95 mm, h = 1.03 mm).
3934
30
25
Fully Developed Nu
20
15
10
0
Fig. 7. Comparison of the numerical results of corrugated straight pipes with experimental data published by Vicente et al. [17].
of water, and qw = {7000, 14,100} W m2 with 50–50% water–eth-
ylene glycol mixture, and the initial value of the velocity field
was {U, V, W}ini=0 m/s. Comparison of the numerical results with
the measured data can be seen in Fig. 7. It can be clearly seen that
the numerical calculations with laminar flow modeling are in an
excellent agreement with the measured data.
Additionally, a series of numerical calculations have been car-
ried out to investigate further the validity of the numerical compu-
tations with testing the dependency of the fully developed heat
transfer rate from the Reynolds number in the laminar and transi-
tional flow regime. The same tube geometry (named ‘‘tube 01” in
Ref. [17]) has been used to carry out the numerical computations.
Two different initial temperature states have been simulated
numerically to take into account the Prandtl number dependency
of the heat transfer rate. The initial and boundary conditions are
as follows: Tini = 20 °C, Tin = 20 °C, minlet = {0.025, 0.032, 0.038}
kg/s, and Tini = 50 °C, Tin = 50 °C, minlet = {0.015, 0.017, 0.02, 0.022}
kg/s, qw = 10,000 W m2, {U, V, W}ini = 0 m/s. Comparison of the
numerical results with the measured data can be seen in Fig. 8. It
can be concluded that the numerical calculations with laminar
flow modeling (without application of any turbulence model) are
in a good agreement with the measured data in the Re number
range [0, 2500] in case of Prandtl number value Pr = 6. It can also
be seen that above the Reynolds number value 2500 the laminar
flow modeling can not produce the results of the experimental
tests because of the increasing intensity of the turbulent flow. In
the lower Prandtl number case Pr = 3 this limit can be found
approximately 10% smaller nearly the value Re = 2250. According
60
50
40
Fully Developed Nu
30
20
10
0
1500
Fig. 8. Comparison of the numerical results of a corrugated straight pipe (p = 15.95 mm, h = 1.03 mm) with experimental data published by Vicente et al. [17].
A. Zachár / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939
Fully Dev Nusselt Nu Vicente et al. 2004 [17], Measured
Present Study, Numerical calculations
26.60107139
23.91187685
19.3776081
19.00439169
35000000 42000000 50000000 100000000
Rayleigh Number Ra
to the result presented by Vicente et al. [17] the flow field inside
the corrugated straight pipe is in the transitional flow regime, be-
cause the critical Reynolds number is approximately Recrit = 1300 in
the case of the studied tube geometry. From this it can be con-
cluded that laminar flow modeling with an adequately refined
mesh can produce results are in a good agreement with the phys-
ical reality in the transitional flow state.
4. Results
Several geometrical parameters of the studied heat exchanger
configuration have been investigated numerically. Length of the
coil has been specified according to the assumption that the veloc-
ity and temperature field is fully developed near the end of the first
turn. For this reason 2 turns configuration of the corrugated helical
coil has been investigated because it should be enough to test the
development of the peripherally averaged Nusselt number. Inner
diameter of the helical tubes is dp = {15, 20, 25} mm, helical pitch
of the coils is pc = 40 mm, and the helical diameter is dc = 340 mm
in the studied cases. The investigated corrugation parameters are
the depth and pitch of corrugation. The following values of corru-
gation pitch are investigated p = {22.25, 44.5, 89} mm to test the
impact of this parameter for the heat transfer rate. The depth of
corrugation has been varied according to the pipe diameter, in case
of dp = 15 mm the values of the corrugation depth are h = {0.75,
1.125, 1.5} mm, in case of dp = 20 mm the depths are h = {1, 1.5,
2} mm and in case of dp = 25 mm the corrugation depths are
h = {1.25, 1.875, 2.5} mm. Two different working fluids have been
Fully Dev Nusselt Nu Vicente et al. 2004 [17], Measured Pr = 6
Present Study, Numerical Calculations, Pr ≈ 6
Fully Dev Nusselt Nu Vicente et al. 2004 [17], Measured Pr = 3
Present Study, Numerical Calculations, Pr ≈ 3
1700 1900 2100 2300 2500 2700 2900 3100
Reynolds Number Re
 A. Zachár / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939
Fig. 9. Temperature isotherms at different location of a corrugated coiled heat exchanger configuration for De = 1120.
used in the numerical calculations the first one is common water
with temperature dependent flow and thermal properties and
the second one is a mixture of the so called TyfocorR ethylene gly-
col based solar fluid and water with a volumetric ratio 50–50%.
Flow and thermal properties of the TyfocorR fluid can be found in
a technical reference paper [23]. Temperature of the inlet fluid is
20 °C all of the studied cases and the wall temperature is 60 °C in
most of the numerical calculations. In some cases higher and lower
surface temperatures are examined but it was found that the dif-
ferent surface temperatures does not significantly modify the heat
transfer rate of the studied heat exchangers. The presented results
are valid in laminar and transitional flow regime in the Dean num-
ber range 30 < De < 1400 and Prandtl number range 3 < Pr < 30.
Fig. 9 presents temperature isotherms at different axial location
of a corrugated helically coiled heat exchanger. The applied helical
pitch is p = 22.25 mm, depth of the corrugation d = 2 mm,
dp = 20 mm and the flow rate Q = 0.05 kg/s. A comparison of the
isotherms presented in Fig. 9 with the isotherms of a smooth tube
coiled heat exchanger indicates the substantial difference between
the two temperature fields. It can be concluded that the tempera-
ture field of the corrugated case is far more homogeneous than the
smooth tube case. This is primarily due to the fact that the addi-
tional swirling motion of fluid particles in the secondary flow field
induces significantly larger heat transfer rate and mixing in the
flow case of the corrugated tubes. Inner and outer sides of a
smooth helical coil can easily be identified on a contour plot of a
temperature field because the coldest/hottest region ‘‘eyes” is al-
ways located near the outer side of the tube cross section with
large gradient of the temperature field between the edge of the
cold/hot region and the tube wall. This kind of horizontally ori-
ented stratification of the temperature field can be significantly re-
duced by the presented helical corrugation on the outer side of the
tube.
3935
Fig. 10 shows a comparison of the secondary flow field at axial
location u = 270° between a helically corrugated coil and a smooth
tube coil. The presented flow field has been created the following
geometrical and flow parameters where the helical pitch and depth
of the corrugation are p = 22.25 mm, h = 2 mm, and the flow rate is
Q = 0.05 kg/s. In Fig. 10 the left side indicates the outer wall, and
the right side refers to the inner wall of the tube. Because of com-
parison purposes the same mass flow rate has been specified for
the smooth tube coil in the numerical simulation. It is clearly seen
that in case of corrugation the secondary flow field contains much
larger velocities than the secondary flow of the smooth tube.
Approximately the largest velocity is 6 times larger in the corru-
gated case than the smooth tube case. The induced additional mo-
tion in the cross section of the corrugated helical pipe is the main
source of the heat transfer augmentation depending on the helical
pitch and the depth of the corrugation. The usual secondary flow
field of smooth helical pipes has been substantially modified be-
cause of the additionally induced swirling motion. A typical sec-
ondary flow profile of a smooth helical pipe consists of two
oppositely rotating eddies in laminar flow regime. It can be ob-
served in Fig. 10 that the number of eddies has been increased sig-
nificantly compared to the smooth helical coil case. This process
further increase the cross sectional mixing of the temperature field
what is important to improve the over all heat transfer rate.
Development of the peripherally averaged Nusselt number at
different axial locations is presented in Fig. 11. The main geomet-
rical parameters of the heat transfer results depicted in Fig. 11
are as follows dp = 25 mm, dc = 340 mm, p = 22.25 mm and
h = 2.5 mm. Fig. 11 contains results of numerical calculations with
various inflow rates where the working fluid is water and the Pra-
ndtl number approximately equals to Pr  5. The peripherally aver-
aged Nusselt number shows stronger oscillatory behaviour than
the smooth helical pipe case. The stronger oscillation of Nusselt
3936 A. Zachár / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939
Fig. 10. Comparison the tangential (secondary) flow field at u = 270° location of a corrugated and a smooth tube coiled heat exchanger configuration with the same initial and
boundary conditions for De = 1120.
number is a consequence of the highly intensified secondary flow
field of the corrugated helical pipe. Similar oscillatory behaviour
of the Nusselt number has also been found by Lin and Ebadian
[3] in their numerical studies of turbulent convective heat transfer
in smooth helical pipes.
This oscillatory behaviour is also observed in Fig. 12 for the
development of the circumferential average Nusselt number. The
heat transport simulations depicted in Fig. 12 have been carried
out with the following geometrical parameters dp = 20 mm,
dc = 340 mm, p = 22.25 mm and h = 2 mm. In this case the working
fluid is a mixture of water and ethylene glycol. The flow rates and
the corresponding Dean numbers can be seen in Fig. 12. It can be
observed that the oscillation of the Nusselt number is significantly
smaller than the higher Dean number cases. After the first half of
the first turn (u = 180°) the average magnitude of the oscillation
has been decreased in higher and lower Dean number cases also.
It has also been observed that the oscillation behaviour completely
vanish in case of low Dean number De < 180–200 flows. Above
De > 200 a smaller magnitude of oscillation than the oscillations
found in the early stage constantly remains. In the range of low
Dean number cases the peripherally averaged Nusselt number
tends to the usual fully developed heat transfer case similar to flow
cases developed inside smooth helical tubes.
A correlation between the Nusselt number and the Dean and
Prandtl numbers and the basic geometrical parameters of corruga-
tion is proposed to describe the dependency of the heat transfer
rate from the flow and geometrical properties
 0:166  0:192
h p
Nu ¼ 0:5855De0:6688 Pr0:408 : ð6Þ
d d
The formula was obtained via curve-fitting of heat transfer results
for the corrugated helical coils. The presented formula is applicable
in the following Dean and Prandtl number ranges 30 < De < 1400,
 A. Zachár / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939 3937

Working Fluid: Water 0.05kg/s, De=1177 0.04kg/s, De=958

0.025kg/s, De=617 0.0125kg/s, De=325
120

Peripherally Averaged Nusselt Number

100

80

60

40

20

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

φ [deg]

Fig. 11. Development of the peripherally averaged Nusselt number along the axial direction in case of geometrical parameters dp = 25 mm, p = 22.25 mm, h = 2.5 mm and
Pr  5.

Working Fluid: water–ethylene glycol mixture with 50 %–50 % 0.05 kg/s, De=317 0.04 kg/s, De=259
80 0.025 kg/s, De=170 0.0125 kg/s, De=92
Peripherally Averaged Nusselt Number

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
φ [deg]

Fig. 12. Development of the peripherally averaged Nusselt number along the axial direction in case of geometrical parameters dp = 20 mm, p = 22.25 mm, h = 2 mm and
Pr  15.

Fig. 13. Nusselt number versus Dean number in case of pure water.
3938 A. Zachár / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 3928–3939
Fig. 14. Nusselt number versus Dean number in case of water–ethylene glycol mixture.
3 < Pr < 30. A careful checks of the exponents of (h/d) and (p/d) ra-
tios in formula (6) can prove that the heat transfer rate is slightly
more sensitive to the modification of the pitch than the modifica-
tion of the corrugation depth. Fig. 13 shows the curves of Nusselt
numbers depending on the Dean number in case of water with dif-
ferent (h/d) ratios where the Prandtl number approximately equals
to Pr  5. The heat transport simulations depicted with different
symbols in Fig. 13 have been carried out with the following corru-
gation parameters p = 22.25 mm, h = {2, 1} mm and tube diameter
dp = 20 mm. The different symbols represent the numerically calcu-
lated configurations and the continuous curves show Eq. (6) at a
specific Prandtl number and (h/d) ratios. Because of comparison
purposes a curve representing the fully developed heat transfer rate
of the smooth helical coil has been depicted in Figs. 13 and 14 also.
Fig. 14 presents a comparison of the heat transfer rate at a higher
Prandtl number value between the corrugated and smooth tube
cases. Following corrugation parameters p = 22.25 mm, h = 2.5 mm
and tube diameter dp = 25 mm have been used to get the heat trans-
fer results indicated by the symbol ( ) in Fig. 14. It can be observed
from Figs. 13 and 14 that the heat transfer is approximately 80–
100% larger compared to the heat transfer values of smooth helical
tubes.
5. Conclusions
Different geometrical parameters of helical corrugation on the
outer surface of helically coiled-tube heat exchangers are exam-
ined to improve the inside heat transfer rate. Several different in-
flow rates and temperatures have been studied to test the impact
of flow parameters for the efficiency of the heat exchanger. It can
be concluded that the heat transfer rate is almost independent
from the inlet temperature and the outer surface temperature
for this reason the further studies have been conducted with
Tin = 20 °C inlet and Tsurf = 60 °C surface temperature. As it was ex-
pected the volumetric flow rate significantly influences the perfor-
mance of a coiled-tube heat exchangers with and without outer
helical corrugation. An empirical formula has been suggested to
indicate the dependency of the Nusselt number from the Dean
and Prandtl numbers. The suggested formula (6) indicating the ef-
fect of the basic corrugation parameters for the heat transfer rate.
The presented results show that the ratio of the helical pitch and
tube diameter (p/d) and the ratio of the corrugation depth and
the tube diameter (h/d) nearly increase or decrease in the same
way the heat transfer rate of the studied heat exchangers. It has
been found that the (p/d) ratio has slightly stronger impact on
the heat transfer enhancement than the (h/d) ratio. The results also
show that a spirally corrugated helical tube with corrugation
parameters (p/d = 1, h/d = 0.1) can increase the heat transfer rate
nearly 100% larger than a smooth helical pipe in the Dean number
range 30 < De < 1400. From computer simulation point of view it is
important to consider the temperature dependency of the working
fluid mostly in case of the water–ethylene glycol mixture because
the changing of the physical properties of this fluid is nearly ten
times larger than the pure water mostly in case of specific heat
capacity and the dynamic viscosity. Development of the peripher-
ally averaged Nusselt number is found to be more oscillatory than
the oscillatory behaviour observed in case of smooth helical coils.
When the flow rates (Dean number) increases the oscillation phe-
nomenon is enhanced. It can be deduced that the oscillation phe-
nomenon is less intense with increasing Prandtl number. The
reason behind this process is that the increasing viscosity of the
working fluid significantly reduces the intensity of the secondary
flow.
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