Heat transfer coefficient tube diameter effect

Effect of Uncertainties in Thermal Design Parameters. The parameters that are used ia the basic siting calculations of a heat exchanger iaclude heat-transfer coefficients tube dimensions, eg, tube diameter and wall thickness and physical properties, eg, thermal conductivity, density, viscosity, and specific heat. Nominal or mean values of these parameters are used ia the basic siting calculations. In reaUty, there are uncertainties ia these nominal values. For example, heat-transfer correlations from which one computes convective heat-transfer coefficients have data spreads around the mean values. Because heat-transfer tubes caimot be produced ia precise dimensions, tube wall thickness varies over a range of the mean value. In addition, the thermal conductivity of tube wall material cannot be measured exactiy, a dding to the uncertainty ia the design and performance calculations. 

It is assumed that process conditions and physical properties are known and the following are known or specified tube outside diameter D, tube geometrical arrangement (unit cell), shell inside diameter D shell outer tube limit baffle cut 4, baffle spacing and number of sealing strips N,. The effective tube length between tube sheets L may be either specified or calculated after the heat-transfer coefficient has been determined. If additional specific information (e.g., tube-baffle clearance) is available, the exact values (instead of estimates) of certain parameters may be used in the calculation with some improvement in accuracy. To complete the rating, it is necessary to know also the tube material and wall thickness or inside diameter. 

On the other hand Bao et al. (2000) reported that the measured heat transfer coefficients for the air-water system are always higher than would be expected for the corresponding single-phase liquid flow, so that the addition of air can be considered to have an enhancing effect. This paper reports an experimental study of non-boiling air-water flows in a narrow horizontal tube (diameter 1.95 mm). Results are presented for pressure drop characteristics and for local heat transfer coefficients over a wide range of gas superficial velocity (0.1-50m/s), liquid superficial velocity (0.08-0.5 m/s) and wall heat flux (3-58 kW/m ). 

The convective and nucleate boiling heat transfer coefficient was the subject of experiments by Grohmann (2005). The measurements were performed in microtubes of 250 and 500 pm in diameter. The nucleate boiling metastable flow regimes were observed. Heat transfer characteristics at the nucleate and convective boiling in micro-channels with different cross-sections were studied by Yen et al. (2006). Two types of micro-channels were tested a circular micro-tube with a 210 pm diameter, and a square micro-channel with a 214 pm hydraulic diameter. The heat transfer coefficient was higher for the square micro-channel because the corners acted as effective nucleation sites. 

A typical layout is shown in Figure 12.8. The tube arrangement, triangular or square pitch, will not have a significant effect on the heat-transfer coefficient. A tube pitch of between 1.5 to 2.0 times the tube outside diameter should be used to avoid vapour blanketing. Long thin bundles will be more efficient than short fat bundles. 

The ratio, L/D, of length to diameter of a packed tube or vessel has been found to affect the coefficient of heat transfer. This is a dispersion phenomenon in which the Peclet number, uL/Ddisp, is involved, where D Sp is the dispersion coefficient. Some 5000 data points were examined by Schliinder (1978) from this point of view although the effect of L/D is quite pronounced, no dear pattern was deduced. Industrial reactors have LID above 50 or so Eqs. (6) and (7) of Table 17.18 are asymptotic values of the heat transfer coefficient for such situations. They are plotted in Figure 17.36(b). 

Extensive experimental determinations of overall heat transfer coefficients over packed reactor tubes suitable for selective oxidation are presented. The scope of the experiments covers the effects of tube diameter, coolant temperature, air mass velocity, packing size, shape and thermal conductivity. Various predictive models of heat transfer in packed beds are tested with the data. The best results (to within 10%) are obtained from a recently developed two-phase continuum model, incorporating combined conduction, convection and radiation, the latter being found to be significant under commercial operating conditions. 

Apart from the important effect of mass velocity, summarised in Table II, the particle size and, to a greater extent, the particle shape were also found to be important. The salt bath temperature gave an effect on U which could not be explained by the induced changes in the conductivity and viscosity of air alone. Particle conductivity and tube diameter, within their range of variation, have only marginal effects on the overall heat transfer coefficient. 

In discussing particle shape effects it seems sensible to compare overall heat transfer coefficients for different shapes relative to a common base,i.e. with regard to pressure drop/extem-al surface area for non-porous supports or pressure drop/solid volume for porous supports. Thus, Fig. 4 is constructed from the heat transfer correlations in Table II, together with pressure drop data collected over the packings at NTP in a 24 an diameter tube. 

Particle thermal conductivity and tube diameter have only marginal effects on the overall heat transfer coefficient within their ranges of variation (kp l-7.5 W/mK dt 21-28 mm). This is apparent in Fig. 5 in the case of tube diameter. 

Previous one-phase continuum heat transfer models (1), (5), (10), (11), which are all based upon "large diameter tube" heat transfer data, fail to extrapolate to narrow diameter tubes. These equations systematically underpredict the overall heat transfer coefficient by 40 - 50%, on average. When allowance is made in the one-phase model for the effect of tube diameter on the apparent solid conductivity (kr>s), Eqn. (7), the mean error is reduced to 18%. However, the best predictions by far (to within 6.8% mean error) are obtained from the heterogeneous model equations. 

With the measurements subject to fluctuations of 20 or 30%, no accurate description of the profile is possible. All that can be said is that with moderate ratios of tube to particle diameter, the maximum velocity is about twice the minimum, and that when the particles are relatively small, the profile is relatively flat near the axis. It is fairly well established that the ratio of the velocity at a given radial position to the average velocity is independent of the average velocity over a wide range. Another observation that is not so easy to understand is that the velocity reaches a maximum one or two particle diameters from the wall. Since the wall does not contribute any more than the packing to the surface per unit volume in the region within one-half particle diameter from the wall, there is no obvious reason for the velocity to drop off farther than some small fraction of a particle diameter from the wall. In any case, all the variations that affect heat transfer close to the wall can be lumped together and accounted for by an effective heat-transfer coefficient. Material transport close to the wall is not very important, because the diffusion barrier at the wall makes the radial variation of concentration small. 

S Water enters a 2-cm-diameter and 3-m-long tube whose walls ate maintained at lOO C with a bulk temperature of 25 C and volume flow rate of 3 m /h. Neglecting the entrance effects and assuming turbulent flow, the Nusselt number can be determined from Nu 0.023 Re Pr. The convection heat transfer coefficient in this case is (a) 4140 W/m K (b) 6160 W/m K... 

Hot water coming from the engine is to be cooled by ambient air In a car radiator. The aluminum tubes in which the water flows have a diameter of 4 cm and negligible thickness. Firs are attached on the outer surface of the lubes in order to increase Ihe lieat transfer surface area on the air side. The heat transfer coefficients on the inner and outer surfaces are 2000 and 150 W/m °C, respectively. If the effective surface area on the finned side is 10 limes the inner surface area, the overall heat transfer coefficient of this lieat exchanger based on the inner surface area is... 

The effect of confinement on the heat transfer coefficient before dry-out was found to be an increase of 74% when the hydraulic diameter decreased from 2 to 0.77 mm. The effect of confinement on dry-out was found to be a decrease in the critical quality from 0.3-0.4 to 0.1-0.2 for the same reduction of the hydraulic diameter. Heat flux dependent boiling prevailed in the 2 mm hydraulic diameter tube while quality dependent boiling prevailed in the 0.77 hydraulic diameter tube because of the difference in boiling and confinement numbers. The transition from one regime to another occurred for Bo - (1 - x) si 2.2-10 regardless of the heat and mass velocity. Moreover it was found that dry-out could even be the dominant boiling mechanism at low qualities. The results obtained with the 2 mm hydraulic diameter tube were in total agreement with Huo et al. (2004) s work. Finally frictional pressure losses seem to dominate up to mass velocities of 469 kg/m s. 

Cox et al. [101] used several kinds of enhanced tubes to improve the performance of horizontal-tube multiple-effect plants for saline water conversion. Overall heat transfer coefficients (forced convection condensation inside and spray-film evaporation outside) were reported for tubes internally enhanced with circumferential V grooves (35 percent maximum increase in U) and protuberances produced by spiral indenting from the outside (4 percent increase). No increases were obtained with a knurled surface. Prince [102] obtained a 200 percent increase in U with internal circumferential ribs however, the outside (spray-film evaporation) was also enhanced. Luu and Bergles [15] reported data for enhanced condensation of R-113 in tubes with helical repeated-rib internal roughness. Average coefficients were increased 80 percent above smooth-tube values. Coefficients with deep spirally fluted tubes (envelope diameter basis) were increased by 50 percent. 

---