CFD analysis of heat transfer in a helical coil heat exchanger with constant heat flux boundary condition

Abstract

A helical coil heat exchanger has a wide range of application in industries over the straight and shell type heat exchangers because of its greater heat transfer area, mass transfer coefficient and higher heat transfer capability, etc. The relevance of helical coil heat exchanger has been identified in industrial application like turbine power plants, automobile, aerospace, etc. because of above mentioned factors. The thesis shows the deviation of Nusselt Number and friction factor for different Dean Number (D/d ratio) and Reynolds Number. CFD analysis has been done for varying inlet condition keeping the heat flux of outer wall constant. Copper was used as the base metal for both inner and outer pipe and simulation has been done using ANSYS 13.0. The software ANSYS 13.0 was used to plot the temperature contour, velocity contour and total heat dissipation rate taking cold fluid at constant velocity in the outer tube and hot fluid with varying velocity in the inner one. Water was taken as the working fluid for both inner and outer tube.