Experimental and CFD Analysis of Effect of Curvature Ratio on Helical Coil Tube Heat Exchanger

The purpose of this study was to investigate the heat transfer characteristics of helical coil tube heat exchanger with different curvature ratio (0.0952, 0.1670, 0.238, and 0.257) versus straight tube heat exchanger. Hot water is used as working fluid in inner tube and cold water surrounded the tube. The three mass flow rates of hot water taken as 0.03 kg/s, 0.04 kg/s and 0.05 kg/s. Effect of curvature ratio on helical coil tube heat exchanger with constant wall temperature condition were studied. This paper deals with commercial CFD tool Ansys Release 14.5 simulation comparison with experimental results. It is found that the CFD simulation results show good agreement with experimental results. It was reported from experimental results pressure drop increases by 14.81 percent as curvature ratio increases from 0.0952 to 0.238. Based on results, it is found that helical coil with curvature ratio 0.0238 is more efficient than straight tube and its overall heat transfer coefficient increases with hot water mass flow rate.