Experimental determination of convective heat transfer coefficients of synthetic oil using wilson plot technique

This paper describes the experiments to determine the convective heat transfer coefficients on a synthetic heat transfer fluid flowing in a Shell-and-Tube heat exchanger. The analysis of results is carried out by application of the Wilson plot Technique, on the basis of which, the convective heat transfer coefficients were experimentally obtained for the fluid flowing inside the tube. The convective heat transfer coefficient of oil derived through Wilson plot is then compared with the convective heat transfer coefficients obtained using the classical thermal resistance equation. An empirical correlation between the convective heat transfer coefficient of oil with respect to its mean velocity of flow in the tube and the bulk oil temperature has been proposed. A correction factor of 2.3 and exploration of the exponent value of 0.2 pertaining to the velocity of oil was obtained. The values of convective heat transfer coefficients obtained after applying the correction factor are consistent with the values reported in the literature for oil-water heat transfers. The variation of the heat transfer coefficients at different temperatures is attributed to factors like vapor blanketing effect, surface temperature measurement difficulty as well as dependence of convection phenomenon on surface geometry and physical conditions of the fluids. Experimental results obtained for a temperature range of 50-200°C are extrapolated upto 400°C, the actual upper operational fluid temperatures used in concentrated solar parabolic trough power plant. The test method proposed in this paper can be useful for the development of oil as heat transfer fluids, where already established or commercialized oil is compared with the oil under development, in the same test setup and under similar test conditions.