Investigation of heat exchanger tube fitted with triangular perforated nail head twisted-tape inserts

Abstract

A numerical investigation of the Nusselt number, heat transfer augmentation efficiency, and friction factor in a laminar flow tube with triangular perforated nail head twisted tape (TPNHTT) is reported using ANSYS 19.2 Fluent. The effects of triangular cut (each side 3 mm) in the middle pitch of the tape along the height, diameter, and top diameter of the nail head (10, 2, and 2.5 mm, respectively) have been explored for (300 ≤ Re ≤ 1800) in a tube of 22 mm diameter. In this paper, implementation has been done with a TPNHTT varying width (14 ≤ b ≤ 20) twist ratio (TR) ranging from (3 ≤ TR ≤ 6), inserts in a tube for laminar flow. Twisted tape (TT) produces a swirl flow associated with fluid resulting in heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop characteristics other than that for the plain tube (PT). The performance of the Nusselt number and friction factor increased up to 123.62% and 495.30%, respectively, on the application of TPNHTT as compared with PT. A maximum thermal performance efficiency of 2.98 has been achieved using the twisted-tape ratio of the current tube in laminar flow at a Reynolds number of 1700. In addition, correlation equations (11) and (12) have been developed for the friction factor and Nusselt number valid for 300 ≤ Re ≤ 1800, 14 ≤ b ≤ 20, and 3 ≤ TR ≤ 6. The study has proved that applying TT is an upgraded approach for laminar convection heat transfer. This novel work finding will be supportive for researchers to design the latest heat exchangers.