Numerical Investigation of Fluidic and heat transfer characteristics in a single helicoidal tube heat exchanger with different cross-sections

A heat exchanger transfers heat between two or more fluids. This device as an important part of the industry includes various types. This work is a numerical study of a single helical tube heat exchanger. The base configuration includes ۹.۵ coils of pipe. Since numerical data should be verified so, the achieved results were validated by using available experimental data and a good agreement could be found. In the present work, both laminar and turbulent regimes of fluid flow were investigated. Firstly, temperature distribution and overall heat transfer coefficient were extracted. Furthermore, one of the most important factors in convective heat transfer namely Nusslet number was studied and some acceptable correlations were represented for it. Then, the effect of the number of coils (۱.۵, ۳.۵, ۵.۵, ۷.۵, and ۹.۵) was studied and the related results were deduced and compared. Finally, two cross-sections including circular and elliptical shapes were investigated and the extracted results were compared.