Presented at the 2017 American Society of Thermal and Fluids Engineers (ASTFE) Conference and 4th International Workshop on Heat Transfer (IWHT)
Enhanced heat transfer tubes are widely used in many areas in order to reduce cost and create a smaller application footprint. A numeric study was performed that predicts performance of industrially relevant heat exchangers using the Vipertex® model 1EHT enhanced heat transfer tubes and compares them to the performance of heat exchangers that use smooth surface tubes. The Vipertex® model 1EHT tubes can be employed to design more efficient heat exchangers while at the same time decreasing the required mass flow rate and allowing the heat exchangers to operate at lower flows; and if needed, they also can reduce the footprint of the heat exchange device. In addition several cases also compared performance to other enhanced tubes. Some of the low fin options performed better for some cases; while for other cases the 1EHT tube performed better. Vipertex® 1EHT tubes produced the most consistent performing option for all the cases considered and demonstrate that it is a good overall tube choice for a wide range of conditions. Through the use of 1EHT enhanced heat transfer tubes, optimized design can reduce the number of tubes while maintaining design requirements. In some designs, the physical size of the heat exchanger can be reduced while maintaining design requirements. Additional case studies for a wider range of conditions will be the subject of future studies.
https://www.astfe.org/conferences/tfec2017/tfec2017_conference_technical_program.pdf