Experimental investigation on thermal-hydraulic characteristics of a tube equipped with modified vortex-generator inserts

The heat transfer, pressure drop, and overall performance specification of a straight circular tube fitted with vortex-generator inserts are investigated experimentally. To modify the thermal-hydraulic performance, the longitudinal spacing of winglets is varied along the flow direction. The experiments are performed in the turbulent regime (7,470 <= Re <= 18,670). Good agreement is obtained when the results are compared and validated with previous correlations proposed for the plain tube. The results show that the use of vortex-generator inserts inside the tube yields a higher heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop than the plain tube, and these parameters augment with increasing the number of winglets. The effect of variation of longitudinal spacing of winglets along the vortex-generator inserts on the heat transfer coefficient is higher that the pressure drop. It is also detected that the variation of this parameter affects each arrangement of winglets exclusively.