Experimental investigation of heat transfer and flow friction in a circular tube fitted with regularly spaced twisted tape elements

Experimental investigation of heat transfer and friction factor characteristics in a double pipe heat exchanger fitted with regularly spaced twisted tape elements, were studied. The inner and outer diameters of the inner tube are 50.6 and 25.8 mm, respectively and cold and hot water were used as working fluids in shell side and tube side. The twisted tapes were made of the stainless steel strip with thickness of 1 mm and the length of 1500 mm. They were inserted in the test tube section in two different cases: (1) full-length typical twisted tape at different twisted ratios (y=6.0 and 8.0), and (2) twisted tape with various free space ratios (S = 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0). The results, obtained from the tube with twisted tape insert, were compared with those without twisted tape. The results show that the heat transfer coefficient increased with twist ratio (y). Whereas the increase in the free space ratio (S) would improve both the heat transfer coefficient and friction factor. The results from each case were correlated for Nusselt number and friction factor. Subsequently, the predicted Nusselt number and friction factor from the correlations were plotted to compare with the experimental data. It was found that Nusselt number was within +/- 15% and +/- 10% for friction factor. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.