CFD Analysis of Heat Transfer Enhancement in Heat Exchanger by Inserting Tubes and Tape

Abstract

This paper aims to present the heat transfer enhancement in a heat exchanger by introducing inside features such as a simple tube, elliptical tube, and a simple tube with a twisted tape insert. This enhancement in heat transfer leads to the saving of energy and the life of the equipment. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is the science of predicting fluid behavior under various circumstances such as heat & mass transfer, fluid motion, chemical reactions and similar phenomena by solving the mathematical equations which control these processes using a computer. CFD is today an important parameter along with pure theory and pure experimentation in the analysis of fluid dynamic problems. Simulation of velocity, temperature and pressure contours along with residuals plots are also performed to gain information about fluid flow and heat transfer. The results of the above-mentioned tubes along with the insert are compared with one another to identify the temperature variation in CFD simulation of different shapes and validating the results. The study is completed on Three conceptual engineering designs and is analyzed using CFD on Ansys programming tool 16.2. Based on the results, providing a simple tube with a twisted tape insert causes an increment of heat transfer rate in the heat exchanger.