Simulation of various cross-section shapes of spring-wire as a turbulator for spiral-pipe

Spring-wire has been recently suggested as a turbulator for curved based helical and spiral tubes because of its flexibility nature. Spring-wire can be fabricated by twisting a wire around a rod. However, common circular wire is the only one normally employed in the fabrication process of the spring-wire while the outcomes of this research show that the other wire cross-section shapes can provide much higher ther-mal performance and Nu number. Novel wire cross-sections for such as triangular, hexagonal, square, and rectangular are numerically simulated in this research (see graphical abstract). All recommended shapes are evaluated from frictional, exergetic and thermal viewpoints for a selected range of Dean number. Nu number of triangular cross section is almost double compared to the common circular cross section. Pressure drop also increases which can be considered as an important criterion depending on the appli-cation of the heat exchanger. Interesting thermal-fluid behavior are found through the spiral pipe under the mentioned spring-wire turbulator all of which are reported in this paper. & COPY; 2023 THE AUTHOR. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study evaluates the thermal performance of various wire cross-section shapes of spring-wire in curved helical and spiral tubes through numerical simulations. The results show that spring-wire with a triangular cross section can provide higher thermal performance and Nu number. However, there is an increase in pressure drop, which depends on the application of the heat exchanger.