Manufacturing and single-phase thermal performance of an arc-shaped inner finned tube for heat exchanger

Constrained by the traditional manufacturing method, the internal helically finned tube always shows a small heat transfer area and a low internal fin. To solve the above problems, a new rolling-extruding method is proposed to fabricate a novel arc-shaped inner finned tube. The manufacturing process of the arc-shaped inner finned tube is presented. The single-phase thermal performances of the arc-shaped inner finned tube is experimentally investigated, and compared with those of the traditional internal helically finned tube and other enhancement structures reported in the literature. The experimental results demonstrate that the arc-shaped inner finned tube exhibits a superior single-phase thermal performance compared with traditional internal helically finned tube. And the performance evaluation criterion of the novel arc-shaped inner finned tube is approximately 13.1% higher than that of the internal helically finned tube at Re = 14200. Moreover, the arc-shaped inner finned tube yields the best thermal performance relative to the other four reported enhanced heat transfer structures. Thus, the novel arc-shaped inner finned tube developed by the rolling-extruding method may be a promising alternative as an enhanced tube for shell-and-tube heat exchanger.