THERMO-FLUID PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF AN IN-LINE PERFORATED BAFFLE WITH OPPOSITELY ORIENTED RECTANGULAR-WING STRUCTURE IN TURBULENT HEAT EXCHANGER

Abstract

This research study examined the effects of a novel swirl airflow design on the rate of heat transfer in a tubular heat exchanger with axial flow. The novel design consisted of 16 rectangular air deflectors placed in opposite directions, positioned at varying angles of inclination. These deflectors were embedded on circular perforated baffle plates, which were spaced equidistantly apart at different pitch ratios. Hot water was supplied to heat exchanger tubes whose arrangement remained constant throughout the experiment, while atmospheric air is flown over tube bundle at Reynolds number that ranged from 16 × 10³ to 3 × 10⁴ . The effect of pitch ratio and inclination angle on the thermal enhancement factor was experimentally analyzed. The findings demonstrated that using an opposite-oriented deflector baffle plate with an inclination angle of 30 deg and a pitch ratio of 1 resulted in an average improvement of 1.17 in the thermal enhancement factor compared to a heat exchanger without a baffle plate, tested under similar conditions.