Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
CHAPTER 1
1. INTRODUCTION
Heat exchangers are used in different processes ranging from conversion, utilisation
& recovery of thermal energy in various industrial, commercial & domestic
applications. Some common examples include steam generation & condensation in
power & cogeneration plants; sensible heating & cooling in thermal processing of
chemical, pharmaceutical & agricultural products; fluid heating in manufacturing &
waste heat recovery etc. Increase in Heat exchanger’s performance can lead to more
economical design of heat exchanger which can help to make energy, material & cost
savings related to a heat exchange process. The need to increase the thermal
performance of heat exchangers, thereby effecting energy, material & cost savings have
led to development & use of many techniques termed as ―Heat transfer Augmentation.
These techniques are also referred as ―Heat transfer Enhancement or ―Intensification.
Augmentation techniques increase convective heat transfer by reducing the thermal
resistance in a heat exchanger. Use of Heat transfer enhancement techniques lead to
increase in heat transfer coefficient but at the cost of increase in pressure drop. So,
while designing a heat exchanger using any of these techniques, analysis of heat transfer
rate & pressure drop has to be done. Apart from this, issues like long term performance
& detailed economic analysis of heat exchanger has to be studied. To achieve high heat
transfer rate in an existing or new heat exchanger while taking care of the increased
pumping power, several techniques have been proposed in recent years.
Swirl flows have many important engineering applications such as the cyclone for
separation of solid, liquid, and gas, swirl atomizers, swirl combustion devices, heat
transfer enhancement etc. In most of these devices, swirl flow transport in a straight
pipe is the most commonly used. Due to the wall effects inside the pipe, the swirl
intensity decays as it moves downstream. Swirl flows are applicable for burners for
mixing ,heat exchangers, engine manifolds etc. A specific and important purpose of
swirling flow is to increase the convection heat transfer coefficient in tubes. Swirling
flow can be increased by using various type of swirlers. This makes the heat transfer in
fluid effective.
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AISAT, Kalamassery Dept. Of Mechanical engineering
Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
CHAPTER 2
2. CLASIFICATION OF ENHANCEMENT TECHNIQUES
Heat transfer enhancement or augmentation techniques refer to the improvement
of thermo-hydraulic performance of heat exchangers. Existing enhancement techniques
can be broadly classified into three different categories:
1. Passive Techniques
2. Active Techniques
3. Compound Techniques.
2.1 PASSIVE TECHNIQUES:
These techniques generally use surface or geometrical modifications to the flow
channel by incorporating inserts or additional devices. They promote higher heat
transfer coefficients by disturbing or altering the existing flow behaviour (except for
extended surfaces) which also leads to increase in the pressure drop. In case of extended
surfaces, effective heat transfer area on the side of the extended surface is increased.
Passive techniques hold the advantage over the active techniques as they do not require
any direct input of external power. Heat transfer augmentation by these techniques can
be achieved by using:
2.1.1 Treated Surfaces: This technique involves using pits, cavities or scratches like
alteration in the surfaces of the heat transfer area which may be continuous or
discontinuous. They are primarily used for boiling and condensing duties. It consists of
a variety of structured surfaces (continuous or discontinuous integral surface roughness
or alterations) and coatings. The roughness created by this treatment do not causes any
significant effect in the single phase heat transfer. These are applicable in cases of two
phase heat transfer only.
2.1.2 Rough surfaces: These surface modifications particularly create the disturbance
in the viscous sub-layer region. These techniques are applicable primarily in single
phase turbulent flows. Small scale roughness or surface modification promotes
turbulence in the flow field near the wall region by disturbing the viscous laminar sub
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Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
layer. This disturbance causes higher momentum and heat transfer. This small scale
roughness has little effect in laminar flows, but is very effective in turbulent single
phase flows.
Nowadays instead of natural roughness, artificial and structured roughness is used in
most applications. Structured roughness can be integral to the surface. Wire coil type
inserts can be inserted inside the tube to provide protuberances in the surface. In case of
structured roughness almost an infinite number of geometric variations can be produced
by machining, casting, or welding. Corrugated tubes, a type of 2-D roughness is shown
in Fig.1 .Rough surfaces have been employed to enhance heat transfer in single phase
flows both inside tubes and outside tubes. External rough surface can be created by
grooving the heat transfer surface and can be used in double pipe and shell and tube
bundles to enhance annulus or shell side heat transfer.
Fig. 1: Corrugated tubes, Two-Dimensional Roughness
2.1.3 Extended surfaces: Plain fins are one of the earliest types of extended surfaces
used extensively in many heat exchangers. Finned surfaces have become very popular
now a days owing to their ability to disturb the flow field apart from increasing heat
transfer area. Extended or finned surfaces increase the heat transfer area which could be
very effective in case of fluids with low heat transfer coefficients. This technique
includes finned tube for shell & tube exchangers, plate fins for compact heat exchanger
and finned heat sinks for electronic cooling. Finned surfaces enhance heat transfer in
natural or forced convection which can be used for cooling of electrical and electronic
devices. The use of extended surfaces for cooling electronic devices is not restricted to
the natural convection heat transfer regime but also can be used for forced convective
heat transfer. Segmented or interrupted longitudinal fins, as shown in Fig.2, promote
boundary layer separation of the fluids and disturb the whole bulk flow field inside
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Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
circular tubes. Separation and restarting of the boundary layers increases the heat
transfer rate. Plate fin or tube and plate fin type of compact heat exchangers, where the
finned surfaces provide a very large surface area density, are used increasingly in many
automotive, waste heat recovery, refrigeration and air conditioning , cryogenic,
propulsion system and other heat recuperative applications. A variety of finned surfaces
typically used include offset strip fins, louvered fins, perforated fins and wavy fins.
Fig. 2 Segmented fin heat sink
2.1.4 Displaced enhancement devices: These inserts are used primarily in confined
forced convection. They improve heat transfer indirectly at the heat exchange surface by
displacing the fluid from the heated or cooled surface of the duct with bulk fluid from
the core flow. Displaced enhancement devices displace the fluid elements from the core
of the channel to heated or cooled surfaces and vice versa .Displaced enhancement
devices include inserts like static mixer elements, metallic mesh, and discs, wire matrix
inserts, rings or balls. Different types of conical ring inserts used in circular tubes are
shown in Fig.3. These inserts do not alter heat transfer surface and provide a lot of
scope for inter-mixing of the fluid particles. Disks promote higher heat transfer with
moderate increase in friction factor whereas friction factor is very high for rings and
round balls. It is found that pressure drop in the turbulent flows are extremely high.
Most of the devices are suitable for laminar flow only. The main objective behind the
use of static mixers is to increase the fluid mixing, so its application is limited to
chemical processes with heat transfer only.
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AISAT, Kalamassery Dept. Of Mechanical engineering
Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
a:- Diverging Ring
b:- Converging Ring
c:- Converging and Diverging Rings
Fig.3: Conical Ring inserts in circular tubes
Heatex wire matrix tube insert is one of the commercially available new displaced
enhancement devices as shown in Fig.4. Degree of the disturbance and mixing depends
on the coil matrix densities attached to core rod. The experiments with spiral brush
inserts for turbulent flows and found out that heat transfer coefficient can be improved
as much as 8.5 times that in a smooth tube, but pressure drop was very high.
Fig.4 Heatex wire matrix tube insert
2.1.5 Swirl flow devices: They produce swirl flow or secondary circulation on the axial
flow in a channel. Helical twisted tape, twisted ducts & various forms of altered
(tangential to axial direction) are common examples of swirl flow devices. They can be
used for both single phase and two-phase flows. Swirl flow devices causes swirl flow or
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AISAT, Kalamassery Dept. Of Mechanical engineering
Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
secondary flow in the fluid .A variety of devices can be employed to cause this effect
which includes tube inserts, altered tube flow arrangements, and duct geometry
modifications. Dimples, ribs, helically twisted tubes are examples of duct geometry
modifications. Tube inserts include twisted-tape inserts, helical strip or cored screw–
type inserts and wire coils. Periodic tangential fluid injection is type of altered tube flow
arrangement. Among the swirl flow devices, twisted- tape inserts had been very popular
owing to their better thermal hydraulic performance in single phase, boiling and
condensation forced convection, as well as design and application issues. Fig.5 shows a
typical configuration of twisted tape which is used commonly. Fig.5 Twisted Tape
Twisted tape inserts increases the heat transfer coefficients with relatively small
increase in the pressure drop. They are known to be one of the earliest swirl flow
devices employed in the single phase heat transfer processes. Because of the design and
application convenience they have been widely used over decades to generate the swirl
flow in the fluid. Size of the new heat exchanger can be reduced significantly by using
twisted tapes in the new heat exchanger for a specified heat load. Thus it provides an
economic advantage over the fixed cost of the equipment. Twisted tapes can be also
used for retrofitting purpose. It can increase the heat duties of the existing shell and tube
heat exchangers. Twisted tapes with multi tube bundles are easy to fit and remove, thus
enables tube side cleaning in fouling situations. Inserts such as twisted tape, wire coils,
ribs and dimples mainly obstruct the flow and separate the primary flow from the
secondary flows. This causes the enhancement of the heat transfer in the tube flow.
Inserts reduce the effective flow area thereby increasing the flow velocity. This also
leads to increase in the pressure drop and in some cases causes’ significant secondary
flow. Secondary flow creates swirl and the mixing of the fluid elements and hence
enhances the temperature gradient, which ultimately leads to a high heat transfer
coefficient.
2.1.6 Coiled tubes: In these devices secondary flows or vortices are generated due to
curvature of the coils which promotes higher heat transfer coefficient in single phase
flows and in most regions of boiling. This leads to relatively more compact heat
exchangers.
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AISAT, Kalamassery Dept. Of Mechanical engineering
Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
2.1.7 Surface tension devices: These devices direct and improve the flow of liquid to
boiling surfaces and from condensing surfaces. Examples include wicking or grooved
surfaces.
2.1.8 Additives for liquids: This technique involves addition of solid particles, soluble
trace additives and gas bubbles added to the liquids to reduce the drag resistance in case
of single phase flows. In case of boiling systems, trace additives are added to reduce the
surface tension of the liquids.
2.2 ACTIVE TECHNIQUES
These techniques are more complex from the use and design point of view as the
method requires some external power input to cause the desired flow modification and
improvement in the rate of heat transfer. It finds limited application because of the need
of external power in many practical applications. In comparison to the passive
techniques, these techniques have not shown much potential as it is difficult to provide
external power input in many cases. Various active techniques are as follows:
2.2.1 Mechanical Aids: Examples of the mechanical aids include rotating tube
exchangers and scrapped surface heat and mass exchangers. These devices stir the fluid
by mechanical means or by rotating the surface.
2.2.2 Surface vibration: They have been used primarily in single phase flows. A flow
or high frequency is applied to facilitate the surface vibrations which results in higher
convective heat transfer coefficients.
2.2.3 Fluid vibration: Instead of applying vibrations to the surface, pulsations are
created in the fluid itself. This kind of vibration enhancement technique is employed for
single phase flows.
2.2.4 Electrostatic fields: Electrostatic field like electric or magnetic fields or a
combination of the two from DC or AC sources is applied in heat exchanger systems
which induces greater bulk mixing, force convection or electromagnetic pumping to
enhance heat transfer. This technique is applicable in heat transfer process involving
dielectric fluids.
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AISAT, Kalamassery Dept. Of Mechanical engineering
Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
2.2.5 Injection: In this technique, same or other fluid is injected into the main bulk fluid
through a porous heat transfer interface or upstream of the heat transfer section. This
technique is used for single phase heat transfer process.
2.2.6 Suction: This technique is used for both two phase heat transfer and single phase
heat transfer process. Two phase nucleate boiling involves the vapour removal through
a porous heated surface whereas in single phase flows fluid is withdrawn through the
porous heated surface.
2.2.7 Jet impingement: This technique is applicable for both two phase and single
phase heat transfer processes. In this method, fluid is heated or cooled perpendicularly
or obliquely to the heat transfer surface.
2.3 COMPOUND TECHNIQUES
A compound augmentation technique is the one where more than one of the
above mentioned techniques is used in combination with the purpose of further
improving the thermo-hydraulic performance of a heat exchanger.
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AISAT, Kalamassery Dept. Of Mechanical engineering
Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
CHAPTER 3
3. SWIRL
Swirl means to turn or cause to turn in a twisting spinning fashion. It is
considered as the tangential flow component of the velocity vector. The purpose of
swirl is to increase the convective heat transfer coefficient in a pipe. As flow carries
through the pipe the decay of swirl occurs, it is due to pressure difference and wall
friction in the pipe section. Applications-heat exchangers, engine manifolds, burners
etc. Heat exchangers are used to exchange heat from one medium to another. In order to
increase the heat transfer we need to increase the diameter of pipe using, instead of
doing that we can make it effective by introducing a swirler in the pipe. In case of
engine manifolds, we can introduce a swirler inside it so that the mixing of fuel become
more effective and proper combustion will occur. It make engine with low emission.
2.1 SWIRL CLASSIFICATION
Swirl is classified into two decaying and non-decaying
Non Decaying Decaying
• Steady • Unsteady
• Swirl is continuous • Swirl is discontinuous
• The flow maintains its • Swirl is introduced to the flow by
characteristic over the whole length inserting a flow guide in the
of the pipe entrance of the pipe.
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AISAT, Kalamassery Dept. Of Mechanical engineering
Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
3.2 VARIOUS SWIRL GENERATORS
There are many ways to create a swirling flow in tubes. Swirl flow generators
play an important role in heat transfer enhancement in heat and mass transfer
equipment’s such as heat exchanger, vortex combustor, drying process, etc. The most
widely used technique is based on twisted tapes which can either be continuous or
discontinuous. These tapes are easily fitted inside tubes (fig.5), but their main drawback
is a quite large increase in the pressure drop along the tubes. When applicability to tube
bundles is not an issue, i.e. when space is available around the tube inlet, tangential
inlets are often used, where the flow is rotated around the tube axis.
Fig. 5 Twisted Tape Fig.6 V-cut
For a decaying swirl flow, the swirl is generated at the entrance of the tube and
decays along the flow path. Several works have been reported on the effect of modified
twisted tape on the heat transfer rate for reducing the pressure loss in heat exchangers.
In order to reduce the pressure drop we may have to modify the designs of the twisted
tape. The modified design as shown in fig.6 the v-cut on the tape reduce the pressure
drop.
Fig.7 Guide Vane
The guide vane was chosen to swirl generation because it has no moving parts.
The geometry of the swirl generator has been designed based on a deflection angle of
63.5 degree which produces a tangential flow that is twice the axial velocity at the
trailing edge of the vanes. The swirl element consisted of three parts which can be built
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Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
together to form the swirl element (fig.7): a spherical nose, an annulus section with 12
vanes and a conical trailing edge tail.
Fig.8 Helical tape
Helical tape is same as that of twisted tape, it is inserted inside the tube. Heat transfer
rate will be more when compared with twisted tape. It has got shorter pitch length.
Fig.9 Axial swirl vanes
Axial swirl vanes are also installed inside the tube. The vanes can have the angles such
as 30,40,50 degrees in order to have swirling motion.
3.3 EFFECT OF SWIRL
Using of swirler will show the following effects:
• Periodic redevelopment of the boundary layer.
• Increase the effective heat transfer area and turbulence intensity.
• Improved fluid mixing between the tube core and the wall region nearby. Thus
enhancing the heat transfer by rapid fluid mixing.
• Shear stress and pressure loss.
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AISAT, Kalamassery Dept. Of Mechanical engineering
Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
CHAPTER 4
4. LITERATURE SURVEY
Heat transfer augmentation using swirl is one of the sound fields in the research
area. A huge number of researches were carried out on this subject for the development
of different applications. To reduce the boundary layers, intensification techniques have
been used but often in a very empirical manner. Thus, the number of studies
(publications and patents) undertaken on the subject has been constantly growing since
the early 1960s.
4.1 TWISTED TAPES
• Full length twisted tape increases the pressure drop comparing to an empty tube.
• The pressure drop depends on the tape geometry and is always larger than185%
for any geometry.
• Twisted tape inserts perform better in laminar flow.
• Twisted tape in turbulent flow is not very effective.
• Pressure drop is reduced when using short length twisted tape located at the inlet
of channel or multiple short length twisted tapes inserted into a long channel and
spaced by an empty length compared to usage of long twisted tapes.
4.2 VANE TYPE
• Heat transfer rate and pressure drop increase with of Reynolds number and vane
angle.
• The downstream swirler gives higher enhancement factor than the upstream one.
• The heat transfer enhancement factor increases as vane angle increases during
laminar flow.
• The heat transfer enhancement factor slightly decreases as vane angle increases
during turbulent flow.
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AISAT, Kalamassery Dept. Of Mechanical engineering
Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
CHAPTER 5
5. APPLICATIONS
The intensification of heat transfer is an important societal challenge in terms of
energy saving and materials, sustainable development, thermal control, compactness,
etc. The fields of application are numerous. Examples include micro and power
electronics, nuclear energy, air conditioning, habitat, transportation, space and
aeronautics industries, renewable energy, chemical engineering and industrial processes,
etc. Passive techniques have been widely explored and have resulted in significant
performance gains in many applications such as heat exchangers. The need for
intensification is becoming increasingly important both in high-tech and conventional
industries. This requires more efficient methods to be addressed. Active techniques are
seen as solutions to respond to this demand. Compared to studies involving passive
techniques, very few works have been carried out using active techniques requiring the
input of external power. Heat transfer enhancement can also find its application in
increasing the efficiency of turbocharging by aiding the inter coolers.
Fig.10 Turbo charging of an engine
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Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
CHAPTER 6
6.1 CONCLUSION
Heat transfer enhancement is a very sound topic in these day of energy scarcity.
Many ways exist to enhance heat transfer:
• Large gains can be obtained using passive techniques, and developments are
still possible, mainly for phase-change heat exchangers.
• Considerable enhancement of heat transfer is reported in the literature for
active techniques.
• Enhancement using swirl is widely studied because of its low cost and high
efficiency.
• Swirl can be made by various methods mainly vane type, twisted tape.
• For laminar flow, using of twisted tape increases the heat transfer rate.
• In turbulent flow, using of vane type or wire coil will give better result when
considering the pressure drop also.
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Swirl induced heat transfer enhancement
REFERENCE
• A.E.Zohir , A.G.Gomaa, “Heat transfer enhancement through sudden expansion
pipe airflow using swirl generator with different angles”, Experimental thermal
and fluid science(2013), 147-154.
• P.W.Deshmukh, S.V.Prabhu, R.P.Vedula , “Heat transfer enhancement for
laminar flow in tubes” ,Applied thermal engineering(2016),1416-1426.
• A Dewan, P Mahanta, K Sumithra Raju, P Suresh Kumar, “Review of passive
heat transfer augmentation techniques”(2004),509-527.
• Kamlesh R. Raut , Prof. H.S. Farkade,“Convective heat transfer enhancement in
tube using insert – A review”, International Journal of Technical Research and
Applications , Volume 2, Issue 2 (March-April 2014), PP. 69-72 .
• S. Martemianov , V.L. Okulov , “On heat transfer enhancement in swirl pipe
flows”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 2379–2393.
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