Numerical analysis of heat transfer characteristics for coiled heat exchanger

Numerical analysis is performed to find flow and heat transfer characteristics for coiled heat exchanger. Location of inlet and outlet ports is one of the important design parameters of the coiled heat exchanger. 3-D numerical predictions are carried out for the coiled heat exchanger system with forced convection flow. For the analysis, three different connection types of inlet and outlet ports are selected with Reynolds number varying in the range of 2,000 and 200,000. From the prediction, pressure drop, flow rate and heat transfer coefficient are analyzed. Among three different connection types of inlet and outlet ports, middle location case is found to yield better characteristics than others. It is also found that characteristics of pressure drop and heat transfer generally follow well proportional variations of Re-m for the wide range of Reynolds number considered in this study.