Mathematical Modelling and Design of Helical Coil Heat Exchanger for Production of Hot Air for Fluidized Bed Dryer

In global industrialization, efforts have been made to increase the rate of heat transfer in heat exchanger, minimizing the size of heat exchanger to reduce cost as well as increasing the effectiveness. Helical coil heat exchanger (HCHE) has been proven to be effective in improving heat transfer due to its large surface area. In this study, HCHE was designed to provide hot air needed for fluidized bed drying processes. The HCHE design model was fabricated and evaluated to study the efficiency of the hot air output for a laboratory fluidized bed dryer. The mathematical model for estimation of the final (output) temperature of air, Taf, passing through the HCHE was developed and validated experimentally. The drying of bitter kola particulates was carried out with a drying temperature of 50C 3C and a bed height-to-bed diameter ratio (H/D) of 1.5. The time taken to dry bitter kola particulates to 0.4% moisture content was 1 hour 45 minutes. Hence, HCHE is recommended for use in the production of hot for laboratory-scale fluidized bed dryers.

Fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of spiral coiled tube: Effects of Reynolds number and curvature ratio

Numerical analysis was performed to investigate flow and heat transfer characteristics in spiral coiled tube heat exchanger. Radius of curvature of the spiral coiled tube was gradually increased as total rotating angle reached 12n. As the varying radius of curvature became a dominant flow parameter, three-dimensional flow analysis was performed to this flow together with different Reynolds numbers while constant wall heat flux condition was set in thermal field. From the analysis, centrifugal force due to curvature effect is found to have significant role in behavior of pressure drop and heat transfer. The centrifugal force enhances pressure drop and heat transfer to have generally higher values in the spiral coiled tube than those in the straight tube. Even then, friction factor and Nusselt number are found to follow the proportionality with square root of the Dean number. Individual effect of flow parameters of Reynolds number and curvature ratio was investigated and effect of Reynolds number is found to be stronger than that of curvature effect.

Numerical Simulation of Liquified Natural Gas Boiling Heat Transfer Characteristics in Helically Coiled Tube-in-Tube Heat Exchangers

Helically coiled tube-in-tube(HCTT)heat exchangers are widely applied to the process technology because of their compactness and higher heat transfer efficiency.HCTT heat exchangers play an important role in liquified natural gas(LNG)use and cold energy recovery.The heat transfer characteristics,pressure distribution,and degree of vaporization of LNG in HCTT heat exchangers are numerically investigated.By comparing the simulation results of the computational model with existing experimental results,the effectiveness of the computational model is verified.The numerical simulation results show the vapor volume fraction of the HCTT heat exchanger is related to the inlet Reynolds number,inner tube diameters,and helix diameter.The vapor volume fraction increases rapidly from the fourth to the seventh equal division points of the helix tube length.On condition that the inlet Reynolds number is greater than 33500,the pressure drop rate gradually increases.When the magnitude of the vapor volume fraction is below 0.2,the heat transfer coefficient increase rate is greater than that when the vapor volume fraction is above 0.2.The heat exchange efficiency of HCTT heat exchangers increases with the decrease of the ratio of helix diameter to inner tube diameter.

Comparison and Performance Analysis of Heat Storage Equipment in Solar Heating System

Solar heating system is widely used recently. Heat storage equipment is the guarantee for steady performance of solar heating system. A design of latent heat storage exchanger with submerged coil was introduced with the structure, working principle, and the main advantages. This heat exchanger was integrated into solar heating system as the heat storage equipment. Advantage comparison of the designed heat exchanger in solar heating system with hot water tank was carried out. The analysis results show that the latent heat storage exchanger is superior to hot water tank obviously. The heat exchanger performance parameters and variations of these parameters are got： （1） with the increase of phase change material （PCM） volume ratio, heat storage equipment volume ratio decreases; （2） heat storage efficiency has the same varying tendency with outdoor and air temperature; while the bigger PCM volume ratio is, the weaker the effect of outdoor air temperature on heat storage efficiency is; （3） heat storage capacity and heat storage efficiency increase together; when PCM volume ratio is big, heat storage efficiency is high and the system can begin operating effcienfly and quickly; （4） with the increase of heat storage capacity, life cyde operation cost （LCOC） of system increases gradually in high speed; but with the increase of PCM volume ratio, the difference between the two systems LCOCs becomes smaller and smaller; （5） the reasonable range of PCM volume ratio is 0.5 - 0.7. Temperature characteristic analysis shows that, with the filled PCM, heat storage medium temperature presents several segments at different time, under conditions of different heat storage capacity and different PCM state.

Application of a Lumped Multi-Section Model for Analyzing the Thermal Performance of a Small-Scale Biomass Boiler

The stationary lumped-cell model was developed and used to simulate the thermal characteristics of domestic biomass boiler with helically coiled tube heat exchanger(HCHE).The device serves as the heat source for ORC(Organic Rankine Cycle)unit and utilizes the thermal oil as the medium transferring the heat to the unit.Most of studies available in the literature refer to the CFD simulations for water flow in tube coils or in one-or two-turn coil elements.These investigations are basically focused on the determination of Nusselt number.The proposed herein model aims at determining the thermal performance of flue gas-oil HCHE while providing low CPU time.To demonstrate the model possibilities,it was used to predict the flue gas temperatures at the inlet and outlet from the heat exchange zone,based on measurement data regarding the outlet temperature of thermal oil.Six test series were considered.The computation results appeared to be in satisfactory agreement with experimental results(the discrepancies do not exceed 12%).The investigations showed that the used approach may be recommended as an alternative method that allows for fast prediction of thermal parameters for units of complex geometries,in particular the multi-coil heat exchangers.