Thermohydraulic study of laminar swirl flow through a circular tube fitted with twisted tapes

Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics in a circular tube fitted with twisted tapes have been investigated experimentally. Laminar swirl flow of a large Prandtl number (205<Pr<518) viscous fluid was considered The swirl was generated by short-length twisted-tape inserts: regularly spaced twisted-tape elements with multiple twists in the tape module and connected by thin circular rods; and smoothly varying (gradually decreasing) pitch twisted-tapes. The heat transfer test section was heated electrically imposing axially and circumferentially constant wall heat flux (UHF) boundary condition. Reynolds number, Prandtl number, twist ratio, space ratio, number of tuns in the tape module, length of the twisted-tape and smoothness of the swirling pitch govern the characteristics. Friction factor and Nusselt number are lower for short-length twisted-tape than those for full-length twisted-tape. On the basis of constant pumping power and constant heat duty, however, short-length twisted-tapes are found to perform better than full-length twisted-tapes for tighter twists. Thermohydraulic performance shows that twisted-tapes with multiple twists in the tape module is not much different from that with single twist in the tape module. Friction factor and Nusselt number are approximately 15 percent lower for twisted-tapes with smooth swirl having the average pitch same as that of the uniform pitch (throughout) twisted-tape and the twisted-tapes with gradually decreasing pitch perform worse than their uniform-pitch counterparts.