Evaluate the hydrothermal behavior in the heat exchanger equipped with an innovative turbulator

Abstract

New copper generators were designed and manufactured to enhance the heat transfer of the double-tube heat exchanger and raise the thermal performance. The copper tube side of the heat exchanger is manufactured with inner and outer diameters of 0.02 m, and 0.022 m, respectively. While Perspex shells manufactured with inner and outer diameters of 0.054 and 0.06 m, respectively, were used. In this study, a cut square turbulator tape was modeled with three different dimensions of square fins, and a hydrothermal examination was performed on them. Three square pieces of different turbulator bars (1 cm, 0.5 cm, 0.25 cm) were selected. The effect of the inclusion of the new turbulator strip on thermal performance, friction factor, and overall heat transfer coefficient was calculated and compared with conventional and other improved heat exchangers. Reducing the width of the turbulator strip fins significantly affected the heat transfer rate in turbulent flow conditions. Compared with the smooth tube, the experimental results showed that the 0.25 cm wide square cut turbulator causes higher Nu number values by 271.7% while for total heat transfer coefficient of 117.6% and 113.7% increase in hot water temperature difference. Efficiency and TPF showed higher values of 2.1 and 2.9 in the case of turbulator with 0.25 cm Square-cut width. The newly designed pumps were compared with other improved heat exchanger works and showed very promising results.