CONTENT

TOPIC : Predicting overall heat transfer

coefficient of Shell and Helical tube heat
exchanger using Ansys fluent

1.INTRODUCTION
2.AIM & SCOPE OF PROJECT
3.EXPERIMENT & MATHEMATICAL
MODELING
4.RESULT AND DISCUSSION
5.CONCLUSION
6.REFERENCE
 INTRODUCTION

1. A heat exchanger is a device that is used to transfer thermal energy (enthalpy) between two
or more fluids, between a solid surface and a fluid, or between solid particulates and a fluid,
at different temperatures and in thermal contact .
2. Helical coil heat exchanger (HCHE) offer distinct advantages, such as improved thermal
efficiency, compactness, easy maintenance and lower installed cost. Heat transfer in helical
coils has been studied and researched, because of the fluid dynamics inside the pipes of a
helical coil heat exchange.
3. HCHE are broadly used in heating and cooling applications such as heat recovery system,
food industries, nuclear power plant, chemical processing, solar water heater, and
refrigeration and air-conditioning units reported that the HCHE showed increase in the heat
transfer rate, effectiveness and overall heat transfer coefficient over the straight tube heat
exchanger on all mass flow rates and operating conditions. Heat transfer enhancement is one
of the key issues of energy saving and compact designs.
4. The effectiveness of heat exchangers is the ratio actual heat transferred to the heat that
could be transferred by heat exchanger of indefinite size, and this can be achieved when the
heat transfer power is increased or when the pressure losses generated is reduced.
 AIM & SCOPE OF PROJECT

• We tends to review the overall heat transfer coefficient of helical coil in heat
exchangers (HCHE). Heat exchanger is a device used in transferring thermal energy
between two or more fluids or solid interfaces and a fluid, in solid particulates and
a fluid at different temperatures and thermal contact.

Keywords
Helical Coil, Heat Transfer, Heat Exchanger, Boundary Conditions, Temperature.
METHODOLOGY

The simulation procedure has following steps:

i. Modelling of heat exchanger
ii. Meshing of geometry
iii. Pre Processing
iv. Post Processing
v. Result
GEOMETRY

Fig 1. Schematic View of typical shell and coiled heat exchanger

• Heat exchanger is built in the ANSYS workbench design module.

• XY-plane is selected for the first sketch.
• A line for the height of the helical structure is made.
• A new plane is created in reference with the XY-plane. Cross section of the coil is
drawn.
• Sketch 2 swept along the line made in sketch made in sketch 1 using the” add
frozen” operation to construct the 3D model with different parts.
• The helical sweep is of 2 turns because the twist specification is defined in number
of turns.
• L = 225mm di = 12mm do = 16mm D = 120mm b = 21.4mm
MESH
Initially a relatively coarser mesh is generated. This mesh contains mixed cells (Tetra and Hexahedral
cells) having both triangular and quadrilateral faces at the boundaries. Care is taken to use structured
hexahedral cells as much as possible. It is meant to reduce numerical diffusion as much as possible by
structuring the mesh in a well manner, particularly near the wall region. Later on, a fine mesh is
generated.

Figure 3.2 :Close View of the Meshed Parts

SOLUTION
• Model: Energy is set to ON position.
• Viscous model is selected Laminar.
• Materials: Water-liquid and copper is selected from the fluent database.
• Cell zone conditions: Fluid. Boundary conditions: Boundary conditions are
used according to the need of the model. The inlet and outlet conditions
are defined as mass inlet and pressure outlet. No slip condition is
considered for each wall.
• The solution methods are specified as follows: Scheme = Simple, Gradient
= Least Square Cell Based, Pressure = Standard, Momentum = Second
Order Upwind, Turbulent Kinetic Energy = Second Order Upwind,
Turbulent Dissipation Rate = Second Order Upwind.
• Solution initialization: initialization methods- Hybrid Initialization.
• Run Calculation: number of iteration- 1000, reporting interval- 1, profile
update interval- 1
Boundary condition

• Tube side water flow rate 0.016 kg/s

• Shell side water flow rate 0.019 kg/s
• Tube inlet temperature 33.4 oC
• Tube outlet temperature 23.5 oC
• Shell inlet temperature 10.9 oC
• Shell outlet temperature 14.6 oC
RESULT
• Temperature Contour on a plane intersecting the exchanger is
plotted.
• Inner area of helical pipe and Log Mean Temperature
Distribution (LMTD) is calculated through expressions.

• Inner area of helical pipe= 0.12467 [m^2]

• Log Mean Temperature Distribution (LMTD)= 16.39[K]
• Heat transfer coefficient (U) = -218.325 [W m^-2 K^-1]
 CONCLUSION

From the study, they showed that:

1) As the number of turn increases, the temperature drops of hot fluid also
increased.
2) The increase in number of turns resulted in higher rate of heat transfer.
3) Temperature at the outlet of hot fluid was found to be more at the location
far from the coil axis as compared to nearer location.

The mean heat transfer coefficient distribution for laminar flow in coiled
tubes is uniform and that of turbulent flow around the tube perimeter is
essentially non-uniform. The non-uniformity is caused by the non-
homogeneity of the flow velocity and temperature distributions which can
cause heat transfer from the inner to the outer generator.
 REFERENCE
• [1] Kharat Rahul., Bhardwaj Nitin., Jha R.S., Development of heat transfer
coefficient correlation for concentric helical coil heat exchanger, International
Journal of Thermal Sciences, vol.-48 (2009) 2300–2308.

• [2] Numerical And Experimental Studies of a Double pipe Helical Heat Exchanger
by Timothy John Rennie, Dept. of Bio-resource Engg. McGill University, Montreal
August 2004.

• [3] Experimental and CFD estimation of heat transfer in helically coiled heat
exchangers by J.S. Jayakumar, S.M. Mahajani, J.C. Mandal, P.K. Vijayan, and Rohidas
Bhoi, 2008, Chemical Engg Research and Design 221-232.

• [4] Ferng, Numerically investigated effects of different Dean Number and pitch size
on flow and heat transfer characteristics in a helically coil-tube heat exchanger