Investigation of the Pressure Drop and Heat Transfer by Axially Grooving the Inner Surface of a Circular Tube Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

Numerous heating and cooling procedures across several sectors make use of heat exchangers.The fluid’s flow and heat transfer characteristics inside the heat exchanger tube have an impact on the efficiency of the device. This study analyses the flow and heat transfer characteristics of water within a straight circular tube with axially grooved inner surface. For this investigation, a 3D numerical model for straight circular pipe of 11.08 mm diameter and 1920 mm length was developed with water as the heat transfer fluid and validated using published experimental data. The simulation was done for a range of Reynolds numbers (1500 – 23,000) and with four axial grooving of (1 mm × 0.5 mm) on the inner surface of tube. The results revealed that the axial grooving in the inner surface of the tube significantly increases the heat transfer between 2% and 10%. The pressure drop along the tube also slightly increased between 0.1% and 1.6%. The overall efficiency increases between 5% and 12% by using inner surface grooved tube.