Flow-Induced Vibration and Heat Transfer Analysis for a Novel Hollow Heat Exchanger

Abstract

A novel hollow shell-and-tube heat exchanger with helical elastic coiled tubes was designed to improve the overall heat transfer performance. Different numbers of helical baffles installed on the hollow helical elastic tubes (HHETs) heat exchanger were compared with the HHET heat exchanger without a baffle. The fluid–solid coupling method was provided to study the effects of the entrance velocity and baffle number on the performances of heat transfer and vibration-enhanced heat transfer. Based on the numerical results, the performances of vibration and heat transfer become more obvious by increasing the entrance velocity. Compared with the HHET heat exchanger without a baffle, adding a baffle or baffles on the HHET heat exchanger can remarkably make the fluid flow more consistent. Whereas a higher number of baffles can weaken the vibration and heat transfer performance of the novel heat exchange, the performance evaluation criteria of the HHET heat exchanger with one baffle, two baffles, and four baffles is improved by 2.04, 4.37, and 2.3%, respectively. It indicates that adding a baffle or baffles to the novel heat exchanger can effectively improve the overall thermal and hydraulic characteristics of the novel heat exchanger.