Experimental investigation of heat transfer enhancement by using different number of fins in circular tube

Abstract EN

The present work investigates the enhancement of heat transfer by using different number of circular fins (8, 10, 12, 16, and 20) in double tube counter flow heat exchanger experimentally.

The fins are made of copper with dimensions 66 mm OD, 22 mm ID and 1 mm thickness.

Each fin has three of 14 mm diameter perforations located at 120o from each to another.

The fins are fixed on a straight smooth copper tube of 1 m length, 19.9 mm ID and 22.2 mm OD.

The tube is inserted inside the insulated PVC tube of 100 mm ID.

The cold water is pumped around the finned copper tube, inside the PVC, at mass flow rates range (0.01019 - 0.0219) kg/s.

The Reynold's number of hot water ranges (640 - 1921).

The experiment results are obtained using six double tube heat exchanger (1 smooth tube and the other 5 are finned one).

The results, illustrated that the heat transfer coefficient proportionally with the number of fin.

The results also showed that the enhancement ratio of heat transfer for finned tube is higher than for smooth tube with (9.2, 10.2, 11.1, 12.1 13.1) times for number of fins (8, 10, 12, 16 and 20) respectively