Influence of Tube Arrangement on the Thermal Performance of Indirect Water Bath Heaters

Document Type : Original Paper

Authors

1 Mechanical Engineering Department, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran

2 Department of Physics, Arak University, Arak, Iran

3 School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Natural convection heat transfer from a tube bundle in the indirect water bath heaters is investigated. A computer-code is used for the solution of the governing equations of mass, momentum and energy transfer based on the SIMPLE-C algorithm. Simulations are carried out for the gas pressure station heater of Kermanshah city with various tube bundle arrangements. In order to validate the numerical code, results of the simulation compared with experimental data which measured from this heater. Effects of the tube bundle arrangement on heat transfer are presented. It is observed that changing the tube bundle arrangement (horizontal and vertical pitch) can affect the rate of heat transfer. In other word it can lead to increase the thermal performance of the indirect water bath heater. Finally, based on this framework it is suggested that the optimum arrangement of tube bundle can lead to the maximum heat transfer. Hence the performance enhances to 5.27%.       

Keywords

References

[1] Morgan, V.T. (1975). “The overall convective heat transfer from a smooth cylinder.” Adv. in Heat Transfer, 11, pp. 199-264.
[2] Churchill, S.W. and Chu, H.H.S. (1975). “Correlating equations for laminar and turbulent free convection from a horizontal cylinder.” Int. J. Heat Mass Trans., 18(9), pp.1049-1053.
[3] Collis,  D.C.  and  Williams,  M.J.  (1954).  “Free  convection of  heat  from  fine  wires.” Aeronautical Research Laboratories, Melbourne, Australia, Note 140.
[4] Sparrow, E.M. and Niethammer, J.E. (1981). “Effect of vertical separation distance  and cylinder-to-cylinder temperature imbalance on natural convection for a pair of horizontal cylinders.” Int. J. Heat Transfer, 103(4), pp. 638-644.
[5] Tokura, I., Saito, H., Kishinami, K. and Muramoto, K. (1983). “An experimental study of free convection heat transfer from a horizontal cylinder in a vertical array set in free space between parallel walls.” Int. J. Heat Transfer, 104, pp.102-107.
[6] Chouikh, R., Guizani, A., Maalej, M. and Belghith, A. (2000). “Experimental study of the natural  convection  flow  around  an  array  of  heated  horizontal  cylinders.”  Renewable Energy, 21(1), pp. 65-78.
[7] Lieberman, J. and Gebhart, B. (1969). ”Interactions in natural convection from an array of heated elements, experimental.” Int. J. Heat Mass Trans, 12(11), pp. 1385-1396.
[8] Marsters, G.F. (1972).” Arrays of heated horizontal cylinders in natural convection.” Int. J. Heat Mass Trans, 15(5), pp. 921-933.
[9] Yousefi,  T. and Ashjaee, M.  (2007).  ”Experimental study of  natural convection  heat transfer from vertical array of isothermal horizontal elliptic cylinders.” Exp. Therm. Fluid Sci., 32, pp. 240-248.
[10] Ashjaee, M. and Yousefi, T. (2007). ”Experimental study of free convection heat transfer from horizontal isothermal cylinders arranged in vertical and inclined arrays.” Int. J. Heat Transfer Eng., 28(5), pp. 460-471.
[11] Van Doormaal, J.P. and Raithby, G.D. (1984). “Enhancements of the simple method for predicting incompressible fluid flows.” Int. J. Heat Transfer, 11, pp. 147–163.
[12] Patankar, S.V. and Spalding, D.B. (1972). ”A calculation procedure for heat, mass and momentum transfer in three-dimensional parabolic flows.” Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 15, pp. 1787–1797.
[13] Leonard, B.P. (1979). ”A stable and accurate convective modeling procedure based  on quadratic upstream interpolation.” Comput. Meth. Appl. Mech. Eng., 19, pp. 59–78.
[14] Patanka, S.V. (1980). “Numerical heat transfer and fluid flow.” Hemisphere Publ.  Co., Washington, DC.
[15] American petroleum institute, (2008). API Specification 12K, Specification for Indirect Type Oilfield Heaters, eighth edition.
[16] Wilson, A.S. and Bassiouny, M.K. (2000). “Modeling of heat transfer for flow across tube banks.” Int. J. Chem. Eng. Process., 39, 1-14.
Journal of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Volume 47, Issue 2 - Serial Number 2
December 2013
Pages 69-81

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 12 June 2013
  • Accept Date: 23 July 2013

Share

How to cite

Statistics