Accepted Manuscript

Numerical investigation of vertical helically coiled tube heat exchangers thermal

performance

Hessam Mirgolbabaei

PII: S1359-4311(17)37501-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2018.02.061
Reference: ATE 11843

To appear in: Applied Thermal Engineering

Received Date: 24 November 2017

Revised Date: 14 January 2018
Accepted Date: 17 February 2018

Please cite this article as: H. Mirgolbabaei, Numerical investigation of vertical helically coiled tube heat exchangers
thermal performance, Applied Thermal Engineering (2018), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.
2018.02.061

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers
we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and
review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process
errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
Numerical investigation of vertical helically coiled tube heat exchangers thermal performance

Hessam Mirgolbabaei*

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Florida Polytechnic University, 4700 Research
Way, Lakeland, Florida 33805

Abstract

The purpose of this study is the assessment of the performance of vertical helically coiled tube-in-shell
heat exchanger, at various shell-side mass flow rates, various coil-to-tube diameter ratios, and different
dimensionless coil pitches. A particular difference of this study with other studies performed on similar
configurations is the boundary conditions for the helical coil. Most studies focus on simplified thermal
conditions like constant wall temperature or constant heat flux on the coil surface, whereas in the present
study a fluid-to-fluid heat transfer is considered. The assessment of the above-mentioned coefficient will
be in the form of numerical solution and based on control volume method. The calculations have been
performed for the steady-state and three-dimensional case.

Keywords: helically coiled tube heat exchangers, effectiveness-NTU, forced convection, shell-and-tube
heat exchanger.

Introduction

Helically coiled tubes are effective as heat transfer equipment due to their compactness and increased heat
transfer coefficients in comparison with straight tube heat exchangers. They are used for thermal energy
exchange in air conditioning systems, nuclear power, refrigeration, and chemical engineering, and
pharmaceutical industry [1]. Xin and Ebadian [2] conducted an experimental study on natural convection
heat transfer from outer surface of coiled tube to air. The coils were oriented both vertically and
horizontally. Three different helicoidal pipes were used to determine the shell-side heat transfer
coefficients. The tube wall was heated by passing a high DC current through the tube wall, resulting in a
constant heat flux boundary condition. Ali [3] conducted experiments to obtain average outside heat
transfer coefficients for a turbulent regime from vertical helical coils submersed in water. In that study,
the experiments were carried out for two sets of coils. In total, the experiments were performed for four
coil-diameter to tube-diameter ratios, for five and ten coil turns, and for five pitches to outer-diameter

mde.ylbbhdirblf@iehbablririmh*
ratios. It was shown that the heat transfer coefficient decreases with coil length for tube diameter of
, whereas it increases for tube diameter of . Ali [3] conducted an experimental
investigation of a steady state laminar natural convection from uniformly heated helical coiled tubes
oriented horizontally in air. The experiments were performed for four different coils and various values of
heat fluxes of . It was found that average heat transfer coefficient decreases along the
coil up to (or close to) the middle turn, then a transition to turbulent begins. Ajele [4] studied shell and
coil natural convection heat exchangers experimentally. Combinations of up to four coils as well as single
coils were tested in a inner diameter shell, and a correlation for multiple coi1 tests of shell-and-
coil natural convection heat exchangers was proposed. Davanahalli et al. [5] investigated a natural
convection heat transfer from helical coiled tubes in water, experimentally. Fraser et al. [6] assumed that
the curves of the modified effectiveness versus the water mass velocity are universal. They assumed
universality to develop an empirical model for natural convection heat exchangers in solar domestic
heating water (SDHW) systems. They also showed this universality by tests on one NCHE having four
coils inside. Fernández-Seara et al. [7] developed a simulation model to predict and evaluate the thermal
performance of helically coiled tube heat exchangers with natural convection at the outer surface of the
coil placed inside a water storage tank. In their calculation of outside heat transfer coefficient, the water
temperature around the coil was considered as a constant. Tube outer diameter was used as the
characteristic length for their calculation of the outer heat transfer coefficient. Zachár [8] conducted a
numerical simulation to study a natural convection induced heat transfer over the outer surface of
helically coiled tubes in shell-and-coil heat exchangers. Water has been used as the working fluid inside
and outside of the coiled tube. In another work [9], mass and heat transfer behavior on the external
surface of helically coiled tube located in a cylindrical container has been studied experimentally. They
proposed mass transfer equations for the prediction of the mass transfer coefficient between the outer
surface of helical coils and the surrounding solution under single phase flow, gas sparging and two-phase
flow. Lu et al. [10] conducted experimental and numerical studies to investigate the shell-side fluid flow
and heat transfer performance in multilayer spiral-wound heat exchangers. Prabhanjan et al. [11]
conducted an experimental study to investigate the natural convection heat transfer from helical coiled
tubes housed in a large water bath. They developed an iterative prediction model to evaluate the
temperature at the outlet of the helical coil side fluid temperature. Andrzejczyk et al. [12] conducted a
series of experimental studies focusing on the passive heat transfer enhancement in the form of baffles to
increase the efficiency of the heat transfer from vertical helically coiled rod heated electrically. They
concluded that proper baffle configuration increases the at the shell-side of the unit
almost twice compared with reference values. They also noticed that the free convection has a significant
role in the in small ranges of Reynolds number and large heat flux from the coil. It is noteworthy that
there have been abundant number of studies focusing on the inner side of the helical coils. As a recent
study, Liu al. [13] performed numerical simulations to study the fully developed turbulent flow of
supercritical in a heated helically coiled pipe.

Most of studies on helically coiled tube heat exchangers are focusing on either some pre-specified
boundary condition (B.Cs.), e.g. constant heat flux, constant temperature boundary conditions, or certain
power input to the coil surface through DC current input, or natural convection mechanism at the shell-
side. There have not been any comprehensive studies on the thermal performance and heat transfer
analysis of the shell-side of this type of compact heat exchangers, by considering the fluid-to-fluid heat
transfer mechanism. To the knowledge of the author, a numerical study conducted by Mirgolbabaei et al.
[14] was the only one with a fluid-to-fluid modeling of the thermal exchange between the flow inside the
coiled tube and the shell-side flow. They investigated the effect of different parameters on the heat
transfer at the shell-side heat transfer coefficient; tube diameter, coil pitch and shell-side mass flow rate.
In that study, they proposed a correlation for the calculation of the as a function of ,
, and . To find an appropriate correlation between the aforementioned quantities, they tried different
characteristic lengths. They realized that a modified form of the normalized length of the heat exchanger
reasonably demonstrates the desired relation between and other dimensionless parameters. Ghorbani
et al. [15] [16] conducted a series of experiments to study the heat transfer in helically coiled tube heat
exchangers. The experiments were conducted for both laminar and turbulent regimes inside the coil. It
was deduced that the relation of the mixed convection heat transfer condition – natural and
forced convections, can be mirrored by that of a pure counter-flow heat exchanger.

For the sake of providing useful insight into the thermal performance of this type of heat exchangers that
are widely used in industry, the focus of the present study is on the effect of variations of various
parameters on the effectiveness of helically coiled tube-in-annular-cylindrical shell heat exchangers. To
resemble the actual thermal boundary condition, three-dimensional fluid-to-fluid numerical simulation for
the steady state condition of the heat exchangers is performed. Convection heat transfer inside the tube,
conduction heat transfer through the tube wall, and the convection at the outer surface of the coiled tube
are modeled.

Numerical algorithm

A steady state condition of heat transfer between the hot fluid inside the helically coiled tube and the she-
side fluid is modeled. SIMPLE-Consistent (SIMPLEC) algorithm has been used for pressure-velocity
coupling [17]. Second-order upwind scheme has been applied for solving the momentum and energy
equations. A relative convergence criterion of 1.0e−5 was used for continuity and velocity in each
direction. The convergence criterion for energy equation was 1.0e−8. The following equations are solved
as the continuity, momentum, and energy equations, respectively, for the steady state condition:

 (1)
 ui   0
xi

 P   u j  (2)
xi
  ui u j    
xi xi
    gi
 xi 

   T  (3)
  cPuiT    k 
xi xi  xi 

In the present analysis, we consider the transport and thermal properties of the working fluids at both
sides of the coiled tube wall – inside the tube and at the shell-side, to be functions of temperature. For
modeling temperature dependent properties, the following polynomial functions were programmed into
the CFD software used:

(4)

(5)

(6)
 (7)

In these correlations, temperature is in . Since the pressure of the fluids does not change
appreciably, and also since the pressure dependency of the properties of an incompressible fluid is
negligibly small, only the temperate dependency was considered in this study.

As depicted in Figure 1, the pipe has an outer diameter . The coil has a diameter of
(measured between the centers of the pipes), while the distance between two adjacent turns, called pitch is
noted as . Coils were located inside the annular space between two coaxial cylindrical shells. Coil
pitches of 1.5–2 tube diameters are studied. Constant temperature ( ) is considered for inlet flow to
the coil-side, and the inlet temperature of the shell-side fluid is that is also considered to be the
same for all the models. Cold water enters the shell-side at the bottom (inlet mass flow rate boundary
condition) and leaves at the top (outlet boundary conditions). The shell-side mass flow rates of water were
in the rage . These flow rates considered are in the range similar to the flow rates in
domestic SDHW applications. The fluid flow in the shell-side is assumed to be laminar. To confirm this
assumption, the cross-section area of the shell-side, that is available for flow pass, has been determined
and the Reynolds number according to this section has been calculated, supposing the flow to be
perpendicular to this section. This cross section is shown in Figure 2. It was found that the Reynolds
number for the flow perpendicular to this surface, based on the equivalent diameter of this cross-section,
is small enough that laminar regime assumption is valid.
 Figure 1. Schematic of the vertical helically coiled tube heat exchanger modeled.

Figure 2. The gray shaded area represents a cross-section area of the shell-side of the heat exchanger
that is available for flow.

Hot water enters the helical coil at the top (mass flow inlet boundary condition) and leaves at the bottom
(outflow boundary condition). The coil-side water mass flow rate is . Also, heat conduction
through the tube wall of thickness is modeled. The overall flow configuration in the exchanger
is countercurrent.

Several studies have identified that a complex flow pattern exists inside a helical pipe, due to which the
enhancement in heat transfer is obtained [18]. The curvature of the coil governs the magnitude of the
centrifugal force while the pitch (or helix angle) influences the torsion to which the fluid is subjected. The
centrifugal force results in the development of secondary flow [18]. Owing to this curvature effect, the
fluid streams on the outer side of the pipe move faster than the fluid streams on the inner side of the pipe.
The difference in velocity sets secondary flows, which pattern changes with the of the
flow, . According to the study conducted by Schmidt [19], the critical Reynolds number for the helical
pipe flow, which determines the flow regime, is related to the curvature ratio as follows:

(8)

According to the mass flow rate range, the coil-side water flow regime is laminar. Also, the material of
the coil tube is copper. For the same shape and dimension of shell part of the heat exchanger, 7 different
 coils have been considered. Dimensions of the heat exchangers modeled are presented in Table 1.
Different boundary conditions for each coil are simulated, by changing the mass flow rate in the shell-side
of the heat exchanger model. In total, 28 simulations have been conducted.

No.

1 160 90 9.52 0.86 125 14.3 24 360 84.52 169.26 0.282

2 160 90 9.52 6..0 125 16.2 21 360 91.73 196.73 0.247
3 160 90 9.52 6..0 125 17.1 20 360 94.37 207.43 0.236
4 160 90 9.52 6..0 125 19 18 360 99.83 232.35 0.213
5 160 90 12.5 0.86 125 21.3 16 360 87.44 186.73 0.249
6 160 90 12.5 0.86 125 22.5 15 360 91.04 201.04 0.234
7 160 90 12.5 0.86 125 25 13 360 101.72 243.4 0.203

Table 1. Coils and shell specifications.

Grid independency analysis

A graphical representation of one of final grid used for one of the specifications mentioned in Table1 is
demonstrated in Figure 3. Structured grids were used to mesh the pipe fluid volume and the pipe solid
volume. Boundary layer mesh was generated for the pipe fluid volume. Owing to the highly irregular
nature of the shell-side flow passage, unstructured grid was generated in that part of the model. Also,
since for the models with small coil pitch, it was hardly possible, and mostly impossible, to generate very
dense grid on the shell-side, another criterion has been considered as limitation in mesh generation
procedure. For the shell-side of the models, first the outer surface of the coils, inner cylinder of the shell,
and outer cylinder of the shell are meshed. Then the mesh is generated for the entire space of the shell-
side. The maximum and minimum mesh density of for shell-side fluid among all the models are
respectively. Grid independency analysis was carried out before
performing full set of simulations. To perform the grid independency analysis, first, certain numbers of
cells are generated on the inner and outer shell-walls, and on the outer surface of the coil. Then, the space
in between them were meshed. Then the numerical simulation is performed, and the data analysis are
performed. At the second step of the grid independency analysis, the number of cells at the inner and
outer cylinder and outer coil surface are doubled, and the similar calculations on the data are performed.
Then, the results from both sets of calculations are compared. This comparison has been conducted for the
coil , and the results for the local convection heat transfer coefficients are shown in Figure 4. The
maximum discrepancy between the results is less than . It proves that the initial number of cells
generated at the surface of the coils, at the inner and outer cylinder as well, are providing a good
resolution. Still, the finer grid is used for the purpose of the simulation.

(i)

(ii)

(iii)
Figure 3. An example of the mesh used for the simulation, i) at the outer surface of the shell, ii) at the
surface of one the coil located in the annuals space in between the inner and outer sell, iii) at the cross
section of the coil inside.

1050

Fine Grid
Coarse Grid
𝒉 ̅ (𝑊
/(𝑚.𝐾
)) 1000

950
0 100 200 300
z (𝑚)
Figure 4. Local convection heat transfer coefficient values at different height in the shell-side of the heat
exchanger for two sets of grids: Fine grid and Coarse grid.
Data reduction
The average heat flux and average convection heat transfer coefficient, at the outer surface of the coil, are
calculated as follows:
Ts ,o (9)
T
C p , s Ts ,o  Ts ,i 
 mc s p,s
z
dz
q  
Ts ,i

Acoil Acoil

and

(9)

respectively. In the foregoing equation, temperature gradient along the heat exchanger height is
considered. It is noteworthy that a good part of the variables can be extracted from the software directly,
without data reduction, e.g. equation 9. This includes the average values for different variables, as well. In
the meantime, the results from the foregoing equations, and the ones following this section are still valid
and equivalent to the direct data from the software.
The validation of the numerical simulation with respect to experimental measurement has been shown in
the primary part of the study in [14]. For the sake of clarity, the comparison is provided here, again, in
Figure 5. The experimental measurements were for a heat exchanger with coil pitch, inner cylinder
diameter, outer cylinder diameter, heat exchanger height, and number of coil pitch of
and 23.25, respectively [15]. The coil was formed carefully by using
straight copper tube. According to the experimental geometry, the numerical simulation from
coil are chosen for the verification purpose. As can be seen, for the same range of heat flux, close
values for average heat transfer coefficient are obtained.
 1200

𝒉 ̅ (𝑊
/(𝑚.𝐾 1000
))

800
11000 13000 15000 17000 19000
𝑞_𝑎𝑣𝑒^" (𝑊/𝑚^2 )

Figure 5. Comparison of the numerical simulation results with the experimental measurement reported
in [15]. The figure is from [14]

Heat exchanger effectiveness is defined as the ratio of the actual heat transfer rate for a heat exchanger to
the thermodynamically limited maximum possible heat transfer rate if an infinite heat transfer surface
area were available in a counter-flow heat exchanger:

Ts ,o (10)
T
q
 ms c p
z
dz
 
Ts ,i
Tc ,i

   dT
qmax
min C p ,c , C p , s ; Tmax  Tc ,i  Ts ,i 
Ts ,i

in this equation is the maximum heat transfer rate that can be hypothetically achieved in a standard
counter-flow heat exchanger of infinite length, corresponding to maximum temperature difference for one
stream. Regarding the numerator and denominator of the forgoing equation for effectiveness, there are
couple of point worth mentioning:
The temperature profile in vertical direction – , is available from the numerical simulation.
Therefore, the information necessary to calculate the term in the numerator of equation (10) is available.
It is also noteworthy that the average specific heat for the working fluid at the shell-side can be calculated
based on the volumetric average, directly by the software.
As for the numerator, to calculate the average specific heat at either side of the heat exchanger, there is a
need for having knowledge about the temperature profile. This temperature profile is the one for the case
of having maximum temperature change at one side of the tube wall. In such a hypothetical condition, to
be able to calculate the average specific heat of that side of the heat exchanger, temperature profile of
both side must be known. There are two possible options that we may consider:
We may assume a linear temperature profile with respect to for the shell-side of the heat
exchanger, and with respect to axial direction of the tube for the coil-side. In such a case, the numerator
can be calculated as follows:

 Tc ,o T
Ts ,o
T 
  mc c p dl  s p z 
m c dz
 Tc ,i l
 
min C p ,c , C p , s ; Tmax  Tc ,i  Ts ,i  min 

Tc ,o
,
Ts ,i
Ts ,o




 dT  dT 

 Tc ,i Ts ,i

 Tc ,o T s ,o  Tc ,i
 mc  c p dT ms  c p dT 
 Tc ,i   c p dT
  min  mc , ms 
Ts ,i
 min  Tc ,o
Ts ,i
,

Ts ,o
 Tc,i  Ts ,i 

 Tc ,i
 dT  dT 

 Ts ,i


in which is an axis in the orthogonal helical coordinate system, aligned, at each point, with the local
axial direction of the coiled tube [20]. However, a temperature-dependent specific heat precludes a linear
temperature profile.
Since we have access to the actual temperature profile at both sides of the heat exchanger – the shell-
side and coil-side, we can extrapolate the variation of the temperature profiles to the case of having
extreme temperature change in one side.
In the present study, the latter approach is adopted. In the following sections, the effect of different
parameters on the effectiveness are studied.
Effect of the coil pitch
The effectiveness of the heat exchanger at different fluid mass velocity for different coils are
demonstrated in Figure 6 and Figure 7, for tube diameter of 9.52 mm and 12.5 mm, respectively. As can
be seen, as the fluid mass velocity increases the effectiveness of the heat exchanger increases.
As it can be seen, increasing the coil-pitch is not leading to larger effectiveness. According to the results
reported in [14], the average heat transfer coefficient at the shell-side, keeping the mass velocity constant,
decreases as the coil-pitch increases from to to , and then increases as the coil-pitch increases
from to . However, as can be observed in Table 1 as well, the coil surface decreases as the coil pitch
increases. For the coil with dimensionless pitch of 2, the effect of decrease of heat transfer area seems to
be dominant to the increased heat transfer coefficient effect. In other word, increasing the pitch of the
helical coil does not increase the total heat transfer rate at the shell-side.

0.67
P=1.5
0.65
P=1.7
0.63
P=1.8
0.61
P=2
0.59

0.57

0.55

0.53

0.51

0.49

0.47
2 4 6 8
𝑮 (𝑘𝑔/(
𝑚^2.𝑠))

Figure 6. Effectiveness for different coils at different fluid mass velocity, for the tube diameter of 9.52
mm.
 0.67
P=1.7
0.65
P=1.8
0.63
P=2
0.61
𝜺 0.59

0.57

0.55

0.53

0.51

0.49

0.47
2 4 6 8
𝑮 (𝑘𝑔/(𝑚
^2.𝑠))

Figure 7. Effectiveness for different coils at different fluid mass velocity, for the tube diameter of 12.5
mm.

Effect of tube diameter

The effect of the tube diameter on the effectiveness of the heat exchanger is also demonstrated in Figure
8. In this figure, the data for coils with different tube diameters but fairly the same outer coil surface area
are compared. All the coils in this figure have the coil surface area equal to . According to this
figure, for the same fluid mass velocity and the same coil surface area - the same heat transfer area,
increase of the tube dimeter by 31.3% would results 1.7% decrease of the effectiveness of the heat
exchanger. On the other hand, it can be concluded that, to decreases the pressure drop at the coil-side of
the heat exchanger a larger tube diameter can be adopted without sacrificing the effectiveness of the shell-
side heat transfer.
 0.67
Dt=12.5
Dt=9.52
0.6219
0.62
0.591
𝜺
0.6152
0.5652
0.57
0.5822
0.5234
0.5555
0.52

0.5147
0.47
2 4 6 8
𝑮 (𝑘𝑔/(
𝑚^2.𝑠))

Figure 8. Effect of tube diameter, for the coils with the same heat transfer area.
Effectiveness-NTU
The number of heat transfer unit is described as:

Acoil U (11)
NTU 
Th,i
min  C p ,c ,C p , s    dT
Tc,i

The overall heat transfer coefficient is calculated as follows:

1 1 ln(d outer / dinner ) 1 (12)

  
U A hc Ainner 2 ktube L h s Aouter

can be either the area of the inner surface of the tube, , or area of the outer surface of the coil –
shell-side heat transfer area, , or the area based on some diameter, .
In the last foregoing equation, the convection heat transfer coefficient for the coil-side, for laminar flow
inside the coil, can be calculated using the equation reported in [19]:
  dinner 
0.194 
(13)
  dinner   0.50.2903
0.9 
Dc 
 

Nu c  3.65  0.08 1  0.8    Re
 1/3
Pr
  Dc  
and
kmean
hc  Nu c .
dinner

In order to establish an effectiveness-NTU relation for the current type of heat exchanger, the results for
the helically coiled tube heat exchanger are plotted along with the curves for two types of standard heat
exchanger configurations. Figure 9 demonstrates the effectiveness-NTU for the counter-flow concentric
tube, cross flow with both fluids unmixed, cross flow with the fluid mixed, and shell-and-tube
(TEMA E), for corresponding to the average value for all the models in the current study.
According to this figure, it is deduced that the standard shell-tube configuration could reasonably
manifest the effectiveness-NTU correlation of the heat exchanger under current study. To this end, the
effectiveness-NTU from the current simulation is plotted against that of the standard shell-tube
configuration at different values, in Figure 10. It is clear that the current data are reasonably correlated
by the shell and tube heat exchanger (TEMA E) relations, for values of greater than 0.6.
 1
0.9
0.8
0.7
𝜺 0.6
Cr=0.7
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 1 2 3 4
𝑵𝑻𝑼
current study shell-tube( TEMA E)
counter flow cross flow
cross flow(Cmax mixed)

Figure 9. Effectiveness-NTU data for the current heat exchanger configuration in comparison with the
corresponding data for heat exchangers with standard configurations.
 1
0.9
0.8
0.7
𝜺 0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 1 2 3 4
𝑵𝑻𝑼
current study Cr=0.33 Cr=0.6 Cr=0.75 Cr=1

Figure 10. Effectiveness-NTU data for the current heat exchanger configuration and curves of the shell-
tube configuration.

Conclusion
Numerical investigation of vertical helically coiled tube heat exchanger has been conducted. the
simulation has been performed for the total number of 28 different cases. The effect of
dimensionless coil pitch and tube dimeter on the effectiveness of the heat exchangers have been
investigated. It has been observed that the increase of the shell-side fluid mass velocity decreases
the effectiveness of the heat exchanger. According to the results reported on the shell-side
average heat transfer coefficient, the decreases of the coil pitch initially and then increases the
convection heat transfer coefficient. However, based on the current data, by increasing the coil
pitch, the effect of reduced coil surface area is dominant upon the decrease of the heat transfer
coefficient, resulting in consistent decreases of the effectiveness. It has been observed that the
effectiveness-NTU correlation of the standard shell-and-tube configuration with values of
greater than 0.6 can reasonably mirror the effectiveness-NTU data of the current heat exchanger
configuration, for
Nomenclatures

Ac Flow cross-sectional area on the shell side

Coil pitch

Specific heat capacity

D Diameter
G
Fluid mass velocity

g Acceleration of gravity

H Height of heat exchanger

h Heat transfer coefficient

Thermal conductivity

Total length of coil

Axial coordinate of the tube

Mass flow rate

N Number of coil turns

Nu Nusselt number,

Number of heat transfer unit

Pressure

Dimensionless pitch ,

Heat transfer rate [W]

Heat flux [W/m2]
Rayleigh Number [gß∆TD3/αv]
Reynolds Number [ρVD/μ]
Temperature [K]
 Velocity component in x-direction [m .s-1 ]

Volume [m3]
Coordinates [m]
Greek symbols
Density [kg/m3 ]
Delta
Dynamic Viscosity [kg/m.s]
Effectiveness
Subscripts
Coil-side
Inlet
Inner-cylinder
inner Inner
mean At mean temperature of the working fluid
o Outlet
Outer-cylinder
outer Outer
Shell-side
tube Tube
Operators
|| Absolute value
min( , ) Minimum of two values

References

[1] S. A. Berger, L. Talbot and L. S. Yao, "Flow in curved pipes," Annual Review of Fluid
Mechanics, vol. 15, pp. 461-512, 1983.
[2] R. C. Xin and M. A. Ebadian, "Natural convection heat transfer from helicoidal pipes,"
 Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 297-302, 1996.
[3] M. E. Ali, "Experimental investigation of natural convection from vertical helical coiled
tubes," International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 665-671, 1994.
[4] O. Ajele, Natural Convection Heat Transfer from Enclosed Helical Coils, Technical
university of Nova Scotia, 1995.
[5] D. G. Parabhanjan, T. J. Rennie and G. S. V. Raghavan, "Natural convection heat transfer
from helical coiled tubes," International Journal of Thermal Sciences, vol. 43, no. 4, pp.
359-365, April 2004.
[6] K. F. Fraser, K. G. T. Hollands and A. P. Brunger, "An empirical model for natural
convection heat exchangers in SDHW systems," Solar Energy, vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 75-84,
1995.
[7] J. Fernández-Seara, C. Piñeiro-Pontevedra and J. A. Dopazo, "On the performance of a
vertical helical coil heat exchanger. Numerical model and experimental validation," Applied
Thermal Engineering, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 680-689, 25 January 2014.
[8] A. Zachár, "Investigation of natural convection induced outer side heat transfer rate of
coiled-tube heat exchangers," International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, vol. 55, no.
25-26, pp. 7892-7901, December 2012.
[9] M. H. Abdel-Aziz, I. Nirdosh and G. H. Sedahmed, "Mass and heat transfer at the outer
surface of helical coils under single and two phase flow," Applied Thermal Engineering,
vol. 103, no. 25, p. 713–719, 2016.
[10] X. Lu, X. Du, M. Zeng, S. Zhang and Q. Wang, "Shell-side thermal-hydraulic performances
of multilayer spiral-wound heat exchangers under different wall thermal boundary
conditions," Applied Thermal Engineering, vol. 70, no. 22, p. 1216e1227, 2014.
[11] D. G. Prabhanjan, T. J. Rennie and G. S. V. Raghavan, "Natural convection heat transfer
from helical coiled tubes," International Journal of Thermal Sciences, vol. 43, no. 4, p.
359–365, April 359–365.
[12] R. Andrzejczyk and T. Muszynski, "Thermodynamic and geometrical characteristics of
mixed convection heat transfer in the shell and coil tube heat exchanger with baffles,"
Applied Thermal Engineering, vol. 121, no. 5, pp. 115-125, July 2017.
[13] X. Liu, X. Xu, C. Liu, J. Ye, H. Li, W. Bai and C. Dang, "Numerical study of the effect of
buoyancy force and centrifugal force on heat transfer characteristics of supercritical CO2 in
helically coiled tube at various inclination angles," Applied Thermal Engineering, vol. 116,
p. 500–515, 2017.
[14] H. Mirgolbabaei, H. Taherian, G. Domairry and N. Ghorbani, "Numerical estimation of
mixed convection heat transfer in vertical helically coiled tube heat exchangers,"
International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, vol. 66, no. 7, p. 805–819, 10 July
2010.
[15] N. Ghorbani, H. Taherian, M. Gorji and H. Mirgolbabaei, "Experimental study of mixed
convection heat transfer in vertical helically coiled tube heat exchangers," Experimental
Thermal and Fluid Science, vol. 34, no. 7, p. 900–905, October 2010.
[16] N. Ghorbani, H. Taherian, M. Gorji and H. Mirgolbabaei, "An experimental study of
thermal performance of shell-and-coil heat exchangers," International Communications in
Heat and Mass Transfer, vol. 37, no. 7, pp. 775-781, August 2010.
[17] H. K. Versteeg and W. Malalasekera, An Introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics:
The Finite Volume Method, Lognman Scientific & Technical, 1995.
[18] A. N. Dravid, K. A. Smith, E. W. Merrill and P. L. Brian, "Effect of secondary fluid motion
on laminar-flow heat-transfer in helically-coiled tubes," AICHe Journal, vol. 17, no. 5, p.
1114–1122, September 1971.
[19] E. F. Schmidt, "Wärmeübergang und Druckverlust in Rohrschlangen," Chemie Ingenieur
Technik, vol. 39, no. 13, p. 781–789, 10 JUly 1967.
[20] E. K. Vachagina and E. I. Kadyirov, "The use of helical coordinate systems," The Quarterly
Journal of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics, vol. 67, no. 4, pp. 553-566, November
2014.
[21] A. Zachár, "Investigation of natural convection induced outer side heat transfer rate of
coiled-tube heat exchangers," International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, vol. 55, no.
25-26, p. 7892–7901, 2012.
The current work, for the first time:
- Simulation of heat transfer in helically coiled tube heat exchangers using a fluid-to-fluid model.
- Investigation of the effects of different parameters on the thermal performance of the helically
coiled tube heat exchangers.
- Exploration of correlation for the helically coiled tube heat exchangers.