Accepted Manuscript

Numerical investigation of different geometrical parameters of perforated con-

ical rings on flow structure and heat transfer in heat exchangers

M.E. Nakhchi, J.A. Esfahani

PII: S1359-4311(18)36632-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2019.04.067
Reference: ATE 13657

To appear in: Applied Thermal Engineering

Received Date: 29 October 2018

Revised Date: 5 April 2019
Accepted Date: 17 April 2019

Please cite this article as: M.E. Nakhchi, J.A. Esfahani, Numerical investigation of different geometrical parameters
of perforated conical rings on flow structure and heat transfer in heat exchangers, Applied Thermal Engineering
(2019), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2019.04.067

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 Numerical investigation of different geometrical parameters of perforated

conical rings on flow structure and heat transfer in heat exchangers

M. E. Nakhchia, J. A. Esfahanib,1

a
School of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad 91775-1111, Iran

Abstract

A numerical study has been performed to investigate the flow and heat transfer characteristics of

fluid flow through heat exchanger tubes fitted with perforated conical rings. The holes are

circular, and the number of holes  N  is ranged from 0 to 10. The influences of perforated

conical ring diameter ratios D 2 / D1 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6 and the hole diameter ratios

d /D 0.06, 0.1 and 0.14 on average Nusselt number, friction factor and thermal

performance factor are reported. This analysis is performed in the turbulent flow regime

 4000  Re  14000 and the governing equations are solved by using (RNG) model. Due

to strong turbulent intensity, perforated conical rings lead to more flow perturbation and fluid

mixing between walls and the core region, which has a significant effect on heat transfer

enhancement. The recirculating flow through the holes can also improve the heat transfer and

reduce the pressure drop through the heat exchanger tube. The results show that the Nusselt

number is reduced up to 35.48% by increasing the number of holes from 4 to 10. The maximum

1
Corresponding author (abolfazl@um.ac.ir)

1
thermal performance factor of 1.241 is obtained for the case of N  10 , d / D 0.1 and

D 2 / D1 0.6 at Reynolds number of 4000.

Keywords: Perforated conical ring; Heat exchanger tube; Recirculating flow; Thermal

performance;

Nomenclature

A Surface area

1 1
Cp Specific heat JKg K

d Hole diameter (m)

D Tube diameter (m)

D1 PCR inner diameter (m)

D2 PCR outer diameter

2 1
h Heat transfer coefficient Wm K

k Thermal conductivity Wm 1K 1

l PCR length (m)

L Tube length (m)

N Number of holes

Nu Nusselt number

p PCR pitch (m)

Pr Prandtl number

Re Reynolds number

T Temperature (K)

Greek symbols

2
 PCR width (m)

1 1
Fluid dynamic viscosity Kg m s

Fluid kinematic viscosity m 2s 1

3
Fluid density Kg m

Subscripts

t Turbulent

Dissipation

1. Introduction

Heat transfer enhancement plays an essential role in the design of different thermal systems such

as heat exchangers, solar heaters, electronic devices, and petroleum refining, etc. The primary

goals of these methods are to reduce the size, weight, operation costs and increase the

performance of the systems. Several techniques have been applied to enhance heat transfer inside

thermal systems such as wavy surfaces [1, 2], grooved and ribbed geometries [3-7], vortex

generators [8-10], twisted tapes [11], conical inserts [12, 13] and other types of turbulators [14-

17].

Advantages of conical rings on heat transfer enhancement were presented by Yakut and Sahin

[12]. They concluded that the conical ring turbulators with 10 mm pitches improve the rate of

heat transfer by 250% under the condition of constant pumping power. Promvonge and Eiamsa-

Ard [18-20] observed an enhancement of 316% in heat transfer coefficient over plain tube

utilizing conical-nozzle turbulators with pitch ratio of 2. They also concluded that the maximum

heat transfer rate of 367% and enhancement efficiency of 1.96 could be found by using the

3
conical-ring and the twisted-tape with twist ratio of 3.75. Ayhan et al. [21] numerically and

experimentally investigated incompressible turbulent flow in circular channels enhanced with

conical hollow inserts for a range of Reynolds number between 3000 and 20000. They found

the optimum geometries L 0.032m , Db 0.052m , Ds 0.03m to maximize the heat

transfer coefficient and minimize the friction loss. Promvonge [22] studied the effect of conical

ring turbulators with different ring to tube diameter ratios on the heat transfer and friction loss in

a uniform heat flux tube. It was found that the heat transfer rates, using the conical rings with

diameter ratio of 0.7, could be enhanced up to 234%. The results were also correlated in the form

of the Nusselt number as a function of design parameters.

Perforated turbulators were designed to produce strong vortex flows that help to enhance

turbulence intensity and reduce the friction factor through heat exchanger tubes [23]. Perforated

inserts usually improve the thermal performance of the systems. Chamoli et al. [10] developed a

new type of perforated vortex generators (PVGs) to improve convection heat transfer. They

concluded that maximum thermal performance of 1.65 was achieved by using PVGs with a

relative pitch length of 2 and the perforated index of 16% at Re=3000. Skullong et al. [24]

reported the effect of staggered-winglet perforated-tapes on the heat transfer rate and pressure

drop of turbulent fluid flow through circular tubes. Their work revealed that the optimum

geometrical parameters corresponding to the maximum value of thermal performance, 1.71, are

blockage ratio of 0.15, pitch ratio of 1.0 at Re=4180. Kongkaitpaiboon et al. [25] experimentally

investigated the heat transfer and friction factor of fluid flow through circular tubes fitted with

perforated conical rings (PCR). They concluded that the maximum thermal performance of 0.92

could be achieved for pitch ratio of 4 and N=8 holes at Re=4000. Sheikholeslami and Ganji [26]

used perforated turbulators with different pitch ratios for heat transfer enhancement inside double

4
pipe heat exchanger tubes. They observed that for turbulent flow, the thermal performance

increases by a factor of 1.59 for the pitch ratio of 1.07 at Re=6000.

Motivated by the above facts, in the present numerical study the flow characteristics, heat

transfer, and friction factor of a heat exchanger tube fitted with PCRs with five different numbers

of holes  N  0, 4, 6, 8 and 10  and with three different hole diameters d 3,5 and 7mm at

D 2 / D1 0.4,0.5 and 0.6 are investigatedNumerical analysis are performed under uniform

wall temperature for turbulent flow regime (4000 ≤ Re ≤ 14,000) using air as the working fluid.

Besides, the thermal performance of fluid flow through tubes fitted with PCRs is also

investigated.

2. Physical model

The schematic of the circular tube enhanced with PCRs, investigated in the present numerical

study, is shown in Fig. 1. The tube had a length  L  of 1440mm and a diameter  D  of 64mm.

In the test section, the PCRs were uniformly mounted in the center of the tube. The geometric

parameters for the PCRs were length  l  60mm  , PCR inlet diameter  D1  50mm  , PCR

thickness   2mm  , PCR outlet diameter  D 2  20, 25,30mm  , and hole diameter

d  3,5,7mm  . The holes are mounted on the middle of the conical surface. In order to validate

the numerical results with experimental results of Kongkaitpaiboon et al. [25], Pitch length  p 

of 240mm (pitch ratio, p / D1  4 ) was selected in this analysis. It should be noted that they

showed that the use of PCRs with a pitch ratio of 4 has the best performance among the tested

geometries. As a result, this geometry has been used for numerical analysis of fluid flow and heat

5
transfer. The number of holes varied from 0 (typical conical ring) to 10. Air with the inlet

temperature of 300K was selected as the working fluid, while the tube wall temperature was

kept constant at 350K . The fluid was assumed to be incompressible, turbulent, and steady with

constant physical properties. The flow domain was 3D, and the effects of gravity were small and

negligible. The circular tube was also studied as a reference base case to compare with the results

of the heat exchanger tube fitted with PCRs.

a) Full scale view

b) Perforated conical-ring (PCR)

Fig. 1 A schematic view of circular tube fitted with PCRs

3. Mathematical model and numerical method

3.1. Governing equations and boundary conditions

6
To solve the flow field, it is necessary to define three-dimensional Reynolds averaged Navier

Stokes (RANS) equations, based on the steady state assumption. The main governing equations

of continuity, momentum and energy equations can be formulated as follows [27-29]:

(1)

(2)

(3)

where  , u  , p , Pr,  are fluid density, fluctuating component of velocity, pressure, the

Prandtl number, and dynamic viscosity of the air, respectively. can be calculated as:

(4)

The equations of k and are as follows:

(5)

(6)

In the above equations, and are the inverse effective Prandtl number for k and ,

respectively. and are constants of the (RNG) turbulent model.

As mentioned in the previous section, air (working fluid) is assumed to be incompressible with

constant physical properties. Uniform velocity (Based on the Reynolds number as a function of

7
the hydraulic diameter of the channel, 4000  Re  14000 ) and the uniform temperature was used

as the inlet boundary conditions. Pressure outlet boundary condition is imposed at the outlet of

the heat exchanger tube. For all of the test cases, a constant temperature of 350K is imposed on

the tube walls. The walls of the PCRs are assumed to be adiabatic with no-slip boundary

conditions.

3.2. Computational domain and numerical simulation

Fig. 2 shows different views of the computational domain which was used for the numerical

study. An unstructured hybrid mesh consisting of tetrahedron elements was generated with

ICEM CFD 14.0 software. Refined mesh near the tube wall and PCR holes were used to ensure

 
the accuracy of the solution in the viscous sublayer y   5 . The three-dimensional numerical

simulations were performed using the finite volume method. The SIMPLE algorithm was used to

couple pressure and velocity terms, and the second-order upwind scheme was applied for the

discretization of the conservation equations. (RNG) turbulent model with enhanced wall

treatment function is found to be capable of predicting flow physics near the PCRs. It should be

pointed out that many studies have reported that (RNG) model can predict the heat transfer

and pressure drop in heat exchanger tubes fitted with different vortex generators [30, 31]. The

selected convergence criteria were 106 for the continuity, momentum, k and equations and

108 for the energy equation. In this study, eleven Reynolds numbers  4000  Re  14000 were

selected for numerical analysis of heat and fluid flow through heat exchanger tubes enhanced

with PCRs.

8
 a) Tube fitted with PCR

b) Detailed view of PCR

Fig. 2 The grid of tube inlet and PCRs with detailed view

The dimensionless distance to the wall y  was maintained in the range of 1-4 for all of the test

cases which is a requirement for the near wall treatment used in this study [32]. Fig. 3 shows the

details of y+ values near the tube wall and PCRs for Re  14000 . The results indicate that the y 

distribution moved to higher values when the number of holes increases from 0 to 10, although

the majority of the data were below 4.

9
 100 100
90 90
80 80
70 70
Frequency [%]

Frequency [%]
60 60
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
y+ y+
a) Plain tube b) N  0
100 100
90 90
80 80
70 70
Frequency [%]

Frequency [%]

60 60
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
y+ y+
c) N  4 d) N  6

10
 100 100
90 90
80 80
70 70
Frequency [%]

Frequency [%]
60 60
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
y+ y+
e) N  8
f) N  10
Fig. 3 Wall y+ distribution along the tube fitted with PCRs with different number of holes for
Re  14000 .

3.3. Grid independence test

In order to verify the quality of the numerical results near the PCRs, six sets of grid numbers,

with 382664, 598306, 673551, 736905, 905871 and 1662482 elements were used in numerical

analysis. The impact of grid density on the numerical results for all of the test cases was analyzed

and the results for the extreme case of N  10 , d / D 0.1 and D 2 / D1 0.5 at Re  14000 are

presented in Table 1. The results of grid independence study indicate that the deviation between

the calculated parameters for 905871 and 1662482 elements is about 0.06% for the heat transfer

coefficient and 0.20% for friction factor.

11
 Table 1 Nusselt number and friction factor calculated by different grid numbers for N  10 at
Re=14000.
Grid number Nu Dev. (%) f Dev. (%)
382664 73.77 - 0.219 -
598306 85.23 15.53 0.383 74.88
673551 88.51 3.84 0.457 19.32
736905 90.28 2.00 0.485 6.13
905871 92.01 1.91 0.502 3.50
1662482 92.07 0.06 0.503 0.20

3.4. Parameter definition

The evaluation of heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop inside heat exchanger tubes fitted

with PCRs involves the following dimensionless parameters: Reynolds number  Re  , friction

factor  f  , Nusselt number  Nu  and thermal performance parameter   . These parameters can

be expressed as:

uD
Re  (7)


2D P
f  (8)
L u 2

hD
Nu  (9)
k


 Nu / Nu s 
(10)
 f / f s 1/3
where u ,  , k , and h are the uniform inlet velocity, the kinematic viscosity of the working

fluid, the fluid thermal conductivity, and the convective heat transfer coefficient, respectively.

Nu s and f s denote the Nusselt number and friction factor inside a plain tube without perforated

conical rings, respectively.

12
 4. Results and discussion

In order to validate the accuracy of the present study, the numerical results of the friction factor

and heat transfer coefficient of fluid flow through the heat exchanger tube fitted by PCRs are

compared with the experimental data of Kongkaitpaiboon et al. [25] with different number of

holes. Fig. 4 shows the validation of the heat transfer results for heat exchanger tube fitted by

PCRs with N  4 and 8 for a pitch ratio of 4. The results show good agreement between the

numerical results and experimental data.

Fig. 4 Validation of Nusselt number of the heat exchanger tube fitted with PCRs with
experimental data of Kongkaitpaiboon et al. [25] for PR  4 with different number of holes

Fig. 5 presents the validation of the numerical results with experimental data of the average

friction factor of PCRs with different number of holes. It can be observed that the numerical

results are in good agreement with the experimental results. The trend is also similar to the

13
moody chart for turbulent fluid flows inside tubes. The corresponding errors for N  4 and 8 are

in the range of 1.06  Error  4.94 and 1.47  Error  5.23 percent, respectively.

Fig. 5 Validation of friction factor of the heat exchanger tube fitted with PCRs with experimental
data of Kongkaitpaiboon et al. [25] for PR  4 with different number of holes

Fig. 6 shows the streamlines for the plain tube and the tube enhanced with PCRs. It can be

observed that the usage of PCRs disturbs fluid flow between the tube wall and core regions while

the plain tube creates straight flow. This type flow enhances fluid mixing and helps to enhance

turbulence intensity of air flow inside heat exchanger tube fitted with PCRs. It also can be

observed that the recirculating flow moves to the tube wall and then mixes with the core region.

This recirculating flow produces effective disruption of the thermal boundary layer. The flow

pattern with PCR indicates a long flow path, which results in relatively better flow mixing

between the tube wall and the core regions.

14
 a) Plain tube b) Tube enhanced with PCR  N  4 

Fig. 6 Streamlines for plain tube and tube enhanced with PCR.

The temperature field contours for air fluid flow inside the plain tube and the tube fitted with

PCRs are presented in Fig. 7. The results reveal that the heat transfer and temperature

enhancement is the highest for the case of N  0 among tested geometries. This is mainly due to

the stronger turbulent intensity and flow perturbation near the tube wall and core regions. The

CRs and PCRs are employed to create turbulent flows with strong turbulent intensity near the

tube walls for thermal boundary layer disruption. In other words, the boundary layer disruption

makes better chaotic mixing between the core regions and the tube walls, thus enhancing the

convective heat transfer. It should be pointed out that the jet formation near core regions has a

considerable effect on fluid mixing between the tube walls and core regions. The jet formation is

strongly dependent on the number of holes and reduces with increasing the number of holes from

0 to 10. It can be observed that the number of holes is highly efficient on temperature

enhancement inside the heat exchanger tubes fitted with PCRs. This indicates that the heat

transfer inside the tube decreases by using PCRs with larger number of holes.

15
 a) Plain tube

b) N  0 (CR)

c) N 4

d) N  6

e) N 8

N  10
f)
Fig. 7 Temperature field contours at Re  5000 for tubes enhanced with CR and PCRs.

The effects of using the conical rings N  0  and PCRs on the axial velocity profiles are

presented in Fig. 8. The high velocity is distributed in the core region and near the wall for tube

enhanced with PCR. The high axial velocity near the wall sweeps the heat from the wall. It can

be observed that the axial velocity magnitude at the outlet of PRCs with more holes is

considerably smaller in comparison with PCRs with a smaller number of holes. The reason for

this is that a significant amount of fluid flow passes through the holes and, as a result, the air

flow rate decreases at the end of the cone. The results show that the outflow fluid from the cone

holes hits the wall of the tube. As a result, better mixing between the fluid flow near the wall and

the central areas is created, and the heat transfer rate is improved. It should be pointed out that

the jet formation entirely depends on the number of holes. It can be observed that the axial

velocity magnitude at the end of conical rings with larger holes d / D1  0.14  is reduced due to

the higher mass flow rate through the holes. The results indicate that the jet flow through the

16
holes of PCR with larger outlet area D 2 / D1 0.6 is reduced. This leads to reduced fluid

mixing between the tube walls and the core region, and thus the Nusselt number may be

decreased.

a) N  4 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5 b) N  6 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5

c) N  8 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5 d) N  10 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5

e) N  4 , d / D1  0.06 , D 2 / D1  0.5 f) N  4 , d / D1  0.14 , D 2 / D1  0.5

g) N  4 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.4 h) N  4 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.6

Fig. 8 Axial velocity contours for tube enhanced with PCRs.

The effect of the number of holes of PCRs on the tangential velocity vectors of air flow inside

heat exchanger tubes is presented in Fig. 9. Due to the higher mass flow rate passing through the

holes of PCR with N  4 , the tangential velocity vectors are stronger in comparison with other

PCRs. The recirculating flow through the holes can improve heat transfer between walls and core

regions. Alternatively, the thermal boundary layer disruption also causes a better-disturbed

mixing between the core and the tube wall. It can be observed that the velocity magnitude of

17
fluid flow through PRC with N  10 is weaker than the other tested geometries. This is mainly

due to the lower mass flow rate through each hole of the PCRs with higher number of holes. The

results reveal that the velocity magnitude through smaller PCR holes d / D1  0.06
significantly improved. This strong velocity leads to stronger vortex flow near the holes which

increases the friction loss and heat transfer coefficient. It also can be observed that due to the

conservation of mass, the fluid velocity magnitude through PCR holes with smaller outlet

diameters D 2 / D1  0.4 is considerably higher than PCRs with larger outlet diameters.

a) N  4 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5 b) N  6 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5

c) N  8 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5 d) N  10 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5

18
 e) N  4 , d / D1  0.06 , D 2 / D1  0.5 f) N  4 , d / D1  0.14 , D 2 / D1  0.5

g) N  4 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.4 h) N  4 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.6

Fig. 9 Comparison of PRC velocity vector plots at z  0.98m .

Fig. 10 shows the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) distributions at z  0.98 1.02m with

different number of holes. Generally, the turbulent intensity is high near the holes where the

shear stress and flow perturbation is much higher in comparison with the core region. It can be

observed that TKE is considerably higher for the case of N  4 in comparison with the other

tested geometries. This indicates that the thermal boundary layer disruption is considerably

higher for PCRs with a smaller number of holes. This is due to the stronger turbulent intensity

through each hole of the PCRs and more disturbances produced near these regions.

19
 a) N 4 b) N  6

c) N  8 d) N  10
Fig. 10 Contour plots of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) in heat exchanger tube inserted
with PCRs with different number of holes at Re  5000 .

Fig. 11 shows the turbulent kinetic energy of air flow through heat exchanger tubes fitted with

CR and PCRs. It can be observed that for the case of N  0 , fluid flow disturbs by the conical

ring, reattaches the tube wall and increases flow disturbance and fluid flow mixing with the core

regions which disrupts the thermal boundary layer near the tube walls. This type of flow

perturbation significantly enhances heat transfer and turbulence intensity of the fluid flow. It can

be observed that turbulent intensity near PCRs significantly decreases with increasing the

number of holes from 4 to 10. The jet formation at the outlet of holes with smaller number of

20
holes creates more fluid mixing which leads to higher turbulent intensity. As expected, the

turbulent kinetic energy near the PCRs with small holes is considerably higher than that with

larger holes.

a) Plain tube b) N  0

c) N  4 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5 d) N  6 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5

e) N  8 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5 f) N  10 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.5

g) N  4 , d / D1  0.06 , D 2 / D1  0.5 h) N  4 , d / D1  0.14 , D 2 / D1  0.5

i) N  4 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.4 j) N  4 , d / D1  0.1 , D 2 / D1  0.6

Fig. 11 Turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) in heat exchanger tube inserted
with PCRs with different number of holes at Re  5000 in the axial direction.

Fig. 12 shows the effect of PCR geometry on the average Nusselt number of air flow in the heat

exchanger tube. Heat transfer coefficient increases with increasing the axial Reynolds number

from 4000 to 14000. This is mainly because the higher Reynolds number provides better fluid

21
mixing and enhances turbulence intensity which disrupts the thermal boundary layer. It can be

deduced that the Nusselt number for the case of the conical ring  N  0  is the highest among

tested geometries. The higher Nusselt number is also associated with thermal boundary layer

disruption in the presence of PCRs. Moreover, the flow disturbance and jet impingement at the

outlet of conical rings increases the fluid resistance, which increases the heat transfer coefficient

through the heat exchanger tube. The results show that the Nusselt number reduces up to 35.48%

with increasing the number of holes from 4 to 10. This is due to higher perturbation and flow

disturbance near PCR walls with smaller number of holes, which results in stronger swirl

intensity and eddies near the walls and jet formation in the core region. It also can be observed

that there is 66.84% enhancement in the heat transfer coefficient for heat exchanger tube

equipped with the typical conical ring  N  0  in comparison with the perforated conical ring

with N 10 . As can be seen, the Nusselt number enhances with decreasing the PCR diameter

ratio from 0.6 to 0.4. This main physical reason is better thermal boundary layer disruption near

the tube walls due to higher axial velocity magnitudes (see Figs. 8-9). The results indicate that

the Nusselt number decreases with increasing the hole diameter due to the same physical reason.

22
 a) Effect of Number of holes

b) Effect of hole diameter and conical diameter ratio

Fig. 12 Variation of Nusselt number with Reynolds number for tubes fitted PCRs with different
geometrical parameters

23
The effect of the number of holes on the friction factor inside tubes fitted with PCRs is presented

in Fig. 13. As can be seen in the figure, the friction factor significantly enhances when conical

rings with no holes are mounted inside the heat exchanger tube. This is mainly due to the

dissipation of the dynamic pressure of air flow because of high viscous losses near the tube

walls. The other reason for friction enhancement is recirculating flows between the core and near

wall regions due to the interaction of pressure and inertial forces in the hydrodynamic boundary

layer region. The use of PCR with larger number of holes in a heat exchanger tube causes a

substantial decrease in f over the typical conical ring  N  0  . The results reveal that the friction

factor decreases up to 76.51% with increasing the number of holes from 4 to 10. It is observed

that the friction factor decreases with increasing Reynolds number for all of the cases as

expected. f shows decrement of 55.23%, 76.73%, 81.47%, and 88.06% in comparison with

typical conical ring  N  0  for N= 4, 6, 8 and 10, respectively. The results illustrate that the

friction factor of the fluid flow through heat exchanger tube fitted with PCRs with D 2 / D1 0.6

is smallest among tested geometries. This friction factor decrement can significantly improve the

thermal performance factor of the system.

24
 a) effect of number of holes

b) Effect of hole diameter and conical diameter ratio

Fig. 13 Variation of friction factor with Reynolds number for tubes fitted PCRs with different
geometrical parameters

25
The effect of different geometrical parameters on thermal performance   is represented in Fig.

14. Based on the definition of thermal performance of heat exchangers, the conical ring

turbulator has a positive influence on the performance of the system when the  values are

higher than unity. It can be seen that the thermal performance values obtained from using five

different PCRs are in similar trend and decrease with the rise of the Reynolds number. At the

lowest number of holes  N  4  , the rise of thermal performance is found to be 24.63% more

than that of the tube fitted with typical conical rings  N  0  , while at N  10 , it is found to be

approximately 40.17%. This indicates that the thermal performance enhancement in heat

exchanger tube fitted with PCRs with larger number of holes is more evident in comparison with

typical conical rings  N  0  . Flow disturbance and jet flow produced by PCRs with larger

number of holes increase the temperature gradient near the tube wall. Therefore, the flow

perturbation and turbulent intensity increases which results in heat transfer enhancement. It can

be observed that PCRs with a diameter ratio of 0.6 have much higher thermal performance factor

in comparison with the other tested geometries. This is mainly due to significant friction factor

reduction by using PCRs with larger outlet area. The maximum thermal performance factor of

1.241 is obtained which is occurred for N  10 , d / D 0.1 and D 2 / D1 0.6 at Reynolds

number of 4000.

26
 Fig. 14 Variation of thermal performance with Reynolds number for tubes fitted PCRs with
different geometrical parameters.

5. Conclusion

The effects of perforated conical rings with three different geometrical parameters

0 N 10, 0.06 d / D 0.14 and 0.4 D 2 / D1 0.6 on the flow characteristics, heat transfer,

and friction loss of air fluid flow under turbulent regime through heat exchanger tubes are

numerically investigated. The numerical results are compared with plain tube and typical conical

rings. The main conclusions are as follows.

 The Nusselt number of PCRs decreases up to 35.48% with increasing the number of

holes from 4 to 10. The recirculating flow passing through the holes, moves to the tube

27
 wall and then mixes with the core region. This recirculating flow produces effective

disruption of the thermal boundary layer and causes heat transfer enhancement.

 f shows decrement of 55.23%, 76.73%, 81.47%, and 88.06% in comparison with typical

conical ring N  0  for N= 4, 6, 8 and 10, respectively. This is mainly related to

dissipation of the dynamic pressure of air flow because of high viscous losses near the

tube walls.

 Thermal performance enhancement for N  4 is found to be 24.63% more than that the

tube fitted with typical conical rings, while at N  10 , it is found to be approximately

40.17%.

 The maximum thermal performance factor of 1.241 is obtained which is occurred for

N  10 , d / D 0.1 and D 2 / D1 0.6 at Reynolds number of 4000.

 Turbulent intensity is stronger near the holes where the shear stress and flow perturbation

is much higher in comparison with the core region. It can be observed that TKE is

considerably higher for the case of N  4 in comparison with the other PCR geometries.

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Ferdowsi

University of Mashhad, under Grant No. 47440.

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33
Graphical abstract

34
Highlights

 Air flow characteristics through heat exchangers inserted with PCR are investigated.

 Recirculating flow passing through the holes significantly increases TKE.

 The Nusselt number decreases 35.48% with increasing the number of holes from 4 to 10.

 Thermal performance of PCR enhances 26.43% in comparison with typical conical rings.

35