Experimental investigation of three fluid heat exchangers using roughness on the outer surface of a helical coil

Abstract

The aim of this study is to utilize waste thermal energy from industries into useful heat for water and air heating. In this paper, the thermal modeling and performance of three fluid heat exchangers (TFHE) have been experimentally investigated. The TFHE considered here is an enhanced version of the double‐pipe heat exchanger. A novel TFHE having fin (1 mm thin copper wire of 10 mm pitch) acts as a roughness element, which is wrapped on the helical coil's outer surface for increasing heat transfer (HT) rate and the turbulence effect for normal water, and this outer surface finned helical coil is inserted between two concentric straight tubes. The innermost tube carries atmospheric air, the finned helical coil tube carries waste hot fluid while normal water flows in the inner annulus of the outermost tube. The coiled‐side Reynolds number is varied in the range of 7000–30,000, while the curvature ratio of 0.1315, pitch‐to‐inside diameter ratio of 2.88 and wire‐to‐tube diameter of the helical tube is kept constant. A counterflow arrangement has been made for experimentation. Nusselt number is calculated using the traditional Wilson plot method that is compared and validated with results available in the literature. The overall HT coefficient is found to increase by increasing the volume flow rate of fluids, while effectiveness decreases or increases depending on residence time and capacity ratio. The percentage increment in the Nusselt number, maximum friction factor, overall HT coefficient between waste hot fluid to normal water, effectiveness is found to be 21.10%–23.88%, 90.91%, 3.40%–29.45%, 3.40%–25.33%, respectively, for the coil side. TFHE is thus proposed for heating water and space simultaneously.