Diamond-Shaped Extended Fins for Heat Transfer Enhancement in a Double-Pipe Heat Exchanger: An Innovative Design

Abstract

Heat transfer enhancement in heat exchangers results in thermal efficiency and energy saving. In double-pipe heat exchangers (DPHEs), extended or augmented fins in the annulus of the two concentric pipes, i.e., at the outer surface of the inner pipe, are used to extend the surface of contact for enhancing heat transfer. In this article, an innovative diamond-shaped design of extended fins is proposed for DPHEs. This type of fin is considered for the first time in the design of DPHEs. The triangular-shaped and rectangular-shaped fin designs of DPHE, available in the literature, can be recovered as special cases of the proposed design. An h-adaptive finite element method is employed for the solution of the governing equations. The results are computed for various performance measures against the emerging parameters. The results dictate that the optimal configurations of the diamond-shaped fins in the DPHE for an enhanced heat transfer are recommended as follows: If around 4–6, 8–12, or 16–32 fins are to be placed in the DPHE, then the height of the fins should be 20%, 80%, or 100%, respectively, of the annulus width. If frictional loss of heat is also to be considered, then for fin-heights of 20–80% and 100% of the annulus width, the placement of 4 and 8 diamond-shaped fins, respectively, is recommended for an enhanced heat transfer. These recommendations are for the radii ratio (i.e., the ratio of the inner pipe radius to that of the outer pipe) of 0.25. The recommendations are be modified if the radii ratio is altered.