Effect of Coil Torsion on Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Characteristics of Shell and Coil Heat Exchanger

The present work introduces an experimental study of horizontal shell and coil heat exchangers. Characteristics of the convective heat transfer in this type of heat exchangers and the friction factor for fully developed flow through their helically coiled tube (HCT) were investigated. The majority of previous studies were performed on HCTs with isothermal and isoflux boundary conditions or shell and coil heat exchangers with small ranges of HCT configurations and fluid-operating conditions. Here, five heat exchangers of counterflow configuration were constructed with different HCT torsions (λ) and tested at different mass flow rates and inlet temperatures of both sides of the heat exchangers. In total, 295 test runs were performed from which the HCT-side and shell-side heat transfer coefficients were calculated. Results showed that the average Nusselt numbers of both sides of the heat exchangers and the overall heat transfer coefficient increase by decreasing coil torsion. At lower and higher HCT-side Reynolds number (Ret), the average increase in the HCT-side average Nusselt number (Nu¯t) is of 108.7% and 58.6%, respectively, when λ decreases from 0.1348 to 0.0442. While, at lower and higher shell-side Reynolds number (Resh), the average increase in the shell-side average Nusselt number (Nu¯sh) is of 173.9% and 69.5%, respectively, when λ decreases from 0.1348 to 0.0442. In addition, a slight increase of 6.4% is obtained in the HCT Fanning friction factor (fc) at lower Ret when λ decreases from 0.1348 to 0.0442, and this effect vanishes with increasing Ret. Furthermore, correlations for Nu¯t, Nu¯sh, and fc are obtained.