Comparative analysis of corrugation effect on thermohydraulic performance of double‐pipe heat exchangers

• Published in: Heat transfer (Hoboken, N.J. Print) N.J. Print), 2021-07, Vol.50 (5), p.4622-4642
• Main Authors: Sruthi, B., Sasidhar, A., Surendra Kumar, A., Sahu, Mithilesh Kumar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: CFD analysis; corrugation effect; heat exchanger; heat transfer; Nusselt number; pressure drop; thermohydraulic performance
• ISSN: 2688-4534; 2688-4542
• DOI: 10.1002/htj.22092

Heat transfer augmentation in heat exchangers has been a key research topic in recent times. Over the years, many methods have been proposed for heat transfer enhancement, such as providing fins, changing the cross‐sectional area of tubes, vortex generator, twisted tape inserts, and so forth. In addition to the above‐mentioned techniques, corrugation of tubes was also proposed by a few authors who demonstrated that this method could effectively increase the heat transfer rate. To address the same in this study, the different corrugation profiles have been created with the help of CATIA software for the study. The simulations were performed using ANSYS R19.2. The results so obtained were used to calculate the various thermal and hydraulic perfoallrmance parameters of the heat exchanger with the help of macros created in MS Excel. The result shows that the use of corrugation on the inner tube of the heat exchanger increased the heat transfer coefficient, fanning friction factor, and rate of cooling by 5%–21%, 90%–355%, and 25.67%–157.40%, respectively, in case of the plain double‐pipe heat exchanger for the mass flow rate variation of 5–25 kg/min. It is also observed that the smooth tube has more thermohydraulic performance as 1.2152.