Numerical Analysis of the Effect of Longitudinal and Transverse Pitch Ratio on the Flow Characteristic of Staggered Drop-Shaped Tubes Bundle

Abstract

The present work has been conducted to clarify flow behavior across staggered drop-shaped tubes bundle at various longitudinal and transversal pitch ratios (the tubes bundle configures in 18 cases). The investigation covers the effects of key design parameters of Reynolds numbers Re = (1.78--18.72) · 103, longitudinal pitch ratios (PL = 1.44, 1.54, 1.64, 1.74, 1.84 and 2.04) and transversal pitch ratios (PT = 1.24, 1.44, 1.64 and 1.82). ANSYS Fluent software package is used to predict the flow pattern around tubes. The results of this study showed that at a constant longitudinal pitch ratio, the minimum friction factor varies with the Reynolds number and transversal pitch ratio. As the Re increases, the friction factor decreases. The minimum values of the friction factor were achieved for (PL = 1.24 and PT = 1.44) at Re = 1.78 · 103, and (PT = PL = 1.64) at Re > 1.78 · 103. Correlation of the friction factor for the studied models were presented