ARTICLE IN PRESS

Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 9991007

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Chemical Engineering Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ces

Augmentation of heat transfer performance in coiled ow inverter

vis-a -vis conventional heat exchanger
M.M. Mandal, Vimal Kumar, K.D.P. Nigam 
Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, India

a r t i c l e in fo

abstract

Article history:
Received 2 June 2009
Received in revised form
11 September 2009
Accepted 20 September 2009
Available online 25 September 2009

In the present work, primarily two studies were carried out to ascertain the performance of coiled ow
inverter (CFI) as heat exchanger at pilot plant scale. In the rst study, performance of CFI heat exchanger
has been compared with conventional heat exchangers, i.e. shell and tube heat exchanger (SHE) and
plate type heat exchanger (PHE) under identical heat transfer area and process conditions. Experiments
were conducted with water owing under laminar ow regime within the ow range of 30300 kg/h in
the tube side of SHE and PHE. Friction factor and Nusselt number calculated from present experimental
study in SHE and PHE were compared with the experimental data previously reported for CFI heat
exchanger (Kumar et al., 2007). The Number of Transfer units (NTU) calculated in the present study for
CFI was nearly 3.77.5 times higher as compared to SHE and 22.5 times higher as compared to PHE. In
the second part of the study, experiments were performed rst time to investigate the pressure drop
and heat transfer of compressed air owing under turbulent ow condition in CFI heat exchanger at
pilot plant scale. Hot air at elevated pressures (1030 kg/cm2) in the tube side of CFI heat exchanger
with ow range 3  104 o NRe o 1.4  105 was cooled by either cooling water or ambient air. The friction
factor and Nusselt number values for compressed air owing in the CFI were also compared with the
experimental data reported in the literature for coiled tube at ambient conditions. On the basis of
experimental results, new correlations for friction factor and Nusselt number of compressed air owing
under turbulent ow condition in CFI heat exchanger have been developed.
& 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Coiled ow inverter heat exchanger
Heat transfer
Hydrodynamics
Turbulence
Transport processes

1. Introduction
Coiled tubes are commonly used in industries due to their
compact structure and high heat and mass transfer coefcient.
They are frequently encountered in practical applications, such as
heat exchangers, chemical reactors and piping systems. Numerous
studies (Adler, 1934; Ito, 1959; Kubair and Kuloor, 1966; Mori and
Nakayama, 1967; Shchukin, 1969; Dravid et al., 1971; Kalb and
Seader, 1972; Mishra and Gupta, 1979; Nigam and Saxena, 1986)
have been carried out to understand the transport phenomenon in
coiled tubes after the pioneering work of Dean (1927, 1928).
Several review papers have been published in order to understand
the hydrodynamics in curved tube for uid owing under laminar
and turbulent ow regime. Recently, Vashisth et al. (2008)
presented an exhaustive review paper dealing with uid ow,
heat transfer and mass transfer in curved tubes for wide range of
process conditions. They also reported limited studies on new
class of chaotic conguration introduced by Saxena and Nigam
(1984). The innovative CFI device developed by Saxena and Nigam
(1984) was based on the concept of multiple ow inversions
 Corresponding author. Tel./fax: + 9111 26591020.

E-mail addresses: nigamkdp@gmail.com, drkdpn@gmail.com,

kdpnigam@chemical.iitd.ac.in (K.D.P. Nigam).
0009-2509/$ - see front matter & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ces.2009.09.053

which were achieved by changing the direction of centrifugal

force in helically coiled tubes. They suggested an optimal design
conguration which consisted of 901 bends at equal intervals of
length in coiled tube geometry. They showed that the device
behaves as a plug ow reactor. Kumar et al. (2007) carried out
experimental study in coiled ow inverter (CFI) heat exchanger at
pilot plant scale to investigate heat transfer and pressure drop at
low Reynolds number. The heat exchanger consisted of CFI tube in
form of eight banks of helical coil connected in series. Each bank
consisted of four arms with equal lengths and each arm consisted
of four turns of helical coil. The CFI tube was placed inside a
cylindrical shell. Experiments were conducted with hot water
owing with Reynolds numbers ranging from 1 103 to 1.6  104
in the tube side. The hot water was being cooled by either cooling
water or ambient air in the shell side. They observed that the
Nusselt number values in CFI were 1225% higher as compared to
the coiled tube data previously reported in the literature. Recently,
Mridha and Nigam (2008a) carried out numerical study using
Fluent 6.2 to investigate the pressure drop and heat transfer in
the CFI for uid with Reynolds number ranging from 1 104
to 3  104. They reported that even at high Reynolds number, CFI
shows 413% enhancement in the heat transfer as compared
to the coiled tube while relative increase in pressure drop
was 29%.

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The present work constitute of mainly two studies at different

process conditions. In the rst study, the performance of CFI heat
exchanger has been compared with conventional heat exchangers
in order to bring out clearly the concept of CFI as efcient heat
exchanger. Therefore, experiments were carried out in conventional shell and tube heat exchanger (SHE) and plate type heat
exchanger (PHE) at pilot plant scale and their performance were
compared with experimental data reported by Kumar et al.
(2007). The heat transfer area and process conditions were
identical as reported for CFI. In this part of study, the uid ows
under laminar ow regime. Experiments were conducted with hot
water in tube side which was cooled by cooling water counter
currently in shell side of heat exchangers. Friction factor and
Nusselt number were calculated for SHE and PHE at various
process conditions. Number of transfer units were calculated and
compared with CFI heat exchanger.
Understanding of heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of uid owing under turbulent ow is of signicant
importance for the design of heat exchangers used in the
industries. Therefore, in the second study, performance of CFI
for uid owing under turbulent ow condition was experimentally investigated at the pilot plant scale. The experiments with
hot, compressed air in tube side of CFI heat exchanger with
Reynolds number varying from 3  104 to 1.4  105 is being
reported for the rst time. The pressure of air was varied from
1030 kgf/cm2. Cooling water or ambient air was used to cool hot
uid in counter current mode at the shell side of heat exchanger.
The experimental results were compared with the data available
in open literature for coiled and straight tubes.

2. Experimental setup and procedure

2.1. Laminar ow
The detailed description of pilot plant setup and experimental
procedure with water system was reported by Kumar et al. (2007).
The conventional heat exchangers of SHE and PHE with identical
heat transfer area as CFI heat exchanger were installed in the pilot
plant. All the three heat exchangers had heat transfer area of
1.76 m2. The designs of conventional heat exchangers are
described below.
2.1.1. Shell and tube heat exchanger (SHE)
SHE is 1 shell and 1 tube pass heat exchanger. The shell of the
heat exchanger had an inner diameter of 162 mm and a wall
thickness of 3 mm with a shell length of 1.026 m. The tubes of heat
exchanger had an outer diameter of 12.7 mm with wall thickness
of 1.2 mm. The heat exchanger was constructed from SS316 tubing
and standard pipe connections. The numbers of tubes were 46
which had tube length of 1 m. The shell of the exchanger was
provided with 6 bafes of 25% cut type with the bafe spacing of
150 mm. Triangular pitch arrangement of tubes with pitch of
19.05 mm was used.
The Fanning friction factor and Nusselt number in SHE were
determined on the basis of experimental results of pressure drop
and overall heat transfer coefcients, respectively.
2.1.2. Plate type heat exchanger (PHE)
The plate dimension of heat transfer plate in PHE is
610  100  1 mm. The number of heat transfer plates was 38
and 2 cover plates. Plate heat exchanger has dimple type
corrugations with the corresponding dimple height of 1.52 mm.
The compressed pact length of plate heat exchanger was 104 mm
and the heat transfer area per plate is 0.05 m2/plate.

Pressure drop for liquid owing in a PHE constitutes of (a)

pressure drop associated with the inlet and outlet ports
and manifolds, (b) pressure drop within the plate passages, and
(c) pressure drop due to elevation change for a vertical ow
system. Hence, pressure drop in PHE can be expressed in
the form

DP 1:5

G2p np
2gc r

4fLG2
rgL
7
2gc De r
gc

where Gp m=p=4D2p is the uid mass velocity in the port, f is

the Fanning friction factor, np is the number of passes on the
given uid side, De is the equivalent diameter of ow passages
(usually equals twice the plate spacing), Dp is port diameter, L is
length of plate. The Fanning friction factor values were
determined based on the pressure drop readings obtained from
experiments.
The heat transfer calculations were carried out after satisfying
the criterion of thermal equilibrium for the system. The heat
balance of tube side and shell side heat uxes were determined as
q mt Cpt Tin  Tout msh Cpsh tin  tout

The measurements of process condition were taken when the heat

balance was within 5%. This was done to take into account the
heat-transfer losses from the shell to the surrounding air. The uid
properties were determined at arithmetic mean temperature
(average of inlet and outlet temperatures) value. Heat-transfer
coefcients were calculated using traditional Wilson plot technique. Wilson plots method is usually chosen to avoid the
disturbance of ow patterns and heat transfer while attempting
to measure wall temperatures. This technique has been reported
by many researchers (Rose, 2004; Kumar et al., 2007). The
detailed method of calculation of heat transfer coefcients in
CFI heat exchanger using Wilson plot technique was reported in
our previous study of Kumar et al. (2007).
2.2. Turbulent ow
Pilot plant setup reported by Kumar et al. (2007) was modied
in order to carry out experiments with compressed air under
turbulent ow in CFI heat exchanger and is shown in Fig. 1. Fresh
air compressor (Ingersoll Rand), Recycle compressor (PPI, USA),
lters and inline electric heater with different design
specications were installed for carrying out experiments with
compressed air. The system for carrying out water experiments
used by Kumar et al. (2007) was disabled.
Experiments were conducted with air at higher pressure (tube
side) and tap water or ambient air (shell side) as the working
uids. At the start of experiment, fresh air was compressed by an
air compressor (C-101). The air compressor was two stages aircooled, lubricating type piston air compressor. After the storage of
compressed air in air reservoir (V-101) at desired pressure, the air
compressor was stopped. At the discharge of the air reservoir
(300 l capacity), three lters (F-101) were connected in the line to
remove moisture, dust particles and oil from the compressed air.
The compressed air was passed through the three lters and then
sent to the system. Pressure test was carried out to check any
leakage of air through the system. If no leakage was found then
the single staged, water cooled, diaphragm type reciprocating
recycle air compressor (C-102) was operated. The ow rate in the
tube side of CFI heat exchanger was controlled through a
pneumatic controller (FIC-101) with a range of 0.14 m3/h and
signal was transmitted to an electrical transmitter, which
provided an electrical output in the range of 420 mA. A spill
back loop was attached with the ow controller to reduce the
pressure drop across feed section. Flow rate of compressed air in

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1001

Fig. 1. Experimental setup for compressed air system in the pilot plant of CFI heat exchanger.

the tube side of heat exchanger was varied from 16100 kg/h. An
inline electric resistance preheater (E-101) was designed for
handling pressure up to 40 kgf/cm2 and temperature range from
40 to 280 1C which heated the compressed air to the desirable
inlet temperature. The outlet temperature of the preheater was
regulated by an automatic PID regulator (TIC-101). Temperature
data were recorded at every 10 s. The T type thermocouples had
limits of error of 0.5 1C, when placed in a common water solution
the readings at steady state were all within 70.1 1C. All the
thermocouples were constructed from the same roll of thermocouple wire, and hence the repeatability of temperature readings
was high. Capacitance type pressure transmitter (PT-101 and 102)
which was calibrated to a span of 060 kgf/cm2 were used for
the pressure measurement of the tube side uid of the heat
exchanger.
An induced draft type cooling tower (CT-101) was used to
pump cooling water into the shell side of the CFI heat exchanger.
The ow rate of cooling water was measured by a magnetic
rotameter type ow meter (FI-201) with the range of 01000 kg/h.
The ow rate of cooling water in the shell side was varied from
100500 kg/h. Blower (B-101) was used for the case where the hot
uid was cooled by ambient air. The temperature was measured at
the inlet and outlet of tube as well as shell side of the heat
exchanger by copper-constantan thermocouples. These were T
type thermocouples with measuring range from 0 to 300 1C and
an accuracy of 0.5 1C or 0.4%. At the inlet of shell of the heat
exchanger, the cooling water temperature was 2530 1C and it was
raised by 511 1C at the outlet of the shell. During the experiments
the ambient temperature was 2228 1C, therefore, there was not
much heat loss from the outer wall of the heat exchanger.
Fig. 2 represents the schematic diagram of CFI heat exchanger
and CFI tube. The detailed description and design aspects of
the CFI heat exchanger were previously reported by Kumar
et al. (2007). Experiments with compressed air owing
under turbulent ow conditions in SHE and PHE could not be
carried out due to technical constraints in the design of pilot
plant.

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of (a) CFI heat exchanger and (b) CFI tube [source:
Mridha and Nigam (2008b)].

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Laminar ow
3.1.1. Pressure drop studies
Pressure drop studies were carried out in SHE and PHE and
compared with CFI heat exchanger at pilot plant scale. All the
three heat exchangers had identical heat transfer area. Fig. 3
shows the variation of pressure drop at different ow rates of
water in tube side of SHE, PHE and CFI heat exchangers,
respectively. The gure shows that pressure drop increases with

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Fig. 3. Pressure drop at different values of ow rate of water owing in the tube
side of different heat exchangers.

Fig. 5. Overall heat transfer coefcient at different ow rates of water in the tube
side of SHE, PHE and CFI heat exchanger.

observed. Friction factor calculated for SHE and PHE were

compared with experimental data of CFI heat exchanger
reported by Kumar et al. (2007). They proposed a correlation for
the friction factor in tube side of CFI heat exchanger as
0:603

fCFI fS 1 0:0456NDe

for NRe o1  104

It can be observed from Fig. 4 that the friction factor in CFI is

nearly 3138% higher as compared to SHE. It was also observed
that the friction factor in CFI was nearly 1922% higher than PHE
for uid owing under laminar ow condition.

Fig. 4. Friction factor versus Reynolds number of water in the tube side of different
heat exchangers.

increase in ow rates of water. The pressure drop in CFI heat

exchanger is higher than SHE and PHE. The increment of pressure
drop in CFI heat exchanger is more at high ow rates of water.
Fig. 4 shows the friction factor value at different values of
Reynolds number of uid owing in tube side of SHE and PHE heat
exchangers. The Fanning friction factor in SHE were determined
from the pressure drop readings as
f

DPd
G2t Ln

where Gt is mass velocity, L is the length of the heat exchanger, n is

number of tube passes and d is the diameter for the tube. In order
to establish the reliability and accuracy of experimental
measurements, the experimental results obtained from this
investigation were compared with the prediction of existing
correlation for single phase uid owing under laminar ow
condition. The friction factor calculated for straight tube by
HagenPoiseuille equation were plotted and compared with the
experimental data of SHE. A maximum difference of 710% was

3.1.2. Heat transfer studies

In order to carry out heat transfer studies, the criterion of
thermal equilibrium for system was veried for each experiment
before recording the process condition measurements. Fig. 5
shows overall heat transfer coefcient at different ow rates of
water in the tube side of SHE, PHE and CFI heat exchanger,
respectively. The experimental data show that overall heat
transfer coefcient increases with increase in ow rates of water
in the tube side as well as shell side of heat exchanger. The overall
heat transfer coefcient of CFI heat exchanger is nearly 2.44.3
times higher than SHE and 1.82.6 times higher than that of PHE
at shell side water ow rate of 1300 kg/h. Similar observations
were made over the complete range of ow rates used in the shell
side of heat exchanger.
Calculation of Nusselt number in tube side was based on heat
transfer coefcient of the uid owing in tube side of heat
exchanger. The heat transfer performance of uid through tube in
terms of the convective heat transfer coefcient has been
calculated from the experimental data with the following
equation:
hi

m  cP  DT
A  DTLM

Nusselt number were calculated with the equation NNu = hid/k,

where m is the mass ow rate, cp is specic heat of uid, k is the
thermal conductivity, d is the tube diameter, A is the area normal
to direction of heat ow, DT is the temperature difference
between surface and uid, DTLM is the log mean temperature
difference (LMTD), hi is the convective heat transfer coefcient.
The experimental results obtained in the present study for SHE
were compared with the prediction of existing correlation for
laminar ow of single phase uid inside straight tube under the
constant wall temperature boundary condition (Seider and Tate,

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1936). According to the correlation of Seider and Tate (1936)


  
NRe  NPr  D 1=3 m 0:14
6
NNu 1:86
mw
L
The heat transfer data for straight tube from the correlation of
Seider and Tate (1936) and SHE have been plotted and shown in
Fig. 6. It is observed that the maximum deviation between the
experimental results of SHE and the correlation of Seider and Tate
(1936) was within 715% which emphasizes the accuracy and
reliability of the experiments. The gure also shows the
experimental data of PHE obtained from the present work
and previously published data of CFI. Kumar et al. (2007)
proposed correlation for the heat transfer in tube side of CFI
heat exchanger as
0:1

0:7 0:4
NPr l
NNu 0:08825NRe

for NRe o 1  104

It can be observed from the gure that there is nearly 5560%

enhancement of Nusselt number in CFI heat exchanger as
compared to SHE and 2741% higher than PHE for uid under
laminar ow condition.

1003

Fig. 7 shows ratio Number of merit in CFI heat exchanger to

that of conventional heat exchanger (CHE). Number of merit is the
ratio of enhancement of Nusselt number to enhancement of
friction factor. It represents the ratio of the heat transfer
enhancement to the increase in pumping power by the system.
It shows that the energy gained in CFI heat exchanger is nearly
1.431.6 times to that of SHE. Similarly, energy gained in CFI heat
exchanger is nearly 1.151.3 times to that of PHE. The term energy
gain has been used in the present context because the number of
merit by the CFI heat exchanger is higher than the conventional
heat exchangers.
Fig. 8 shows the Number of transfer units (NTU) calculated for
heat exchangers with same area at identical process conditions. It
is observed that NTU is maximum in CFI heat exchanger as
compared to SHE and PHE. NTU calculated for CFI was nearly
3.77.5 times higher as compared to SHE for shell side ow rate of
800 kg/h. It was also observed that NTU in CFI was 22.5 times
higher as compared to PHE.
3.2. Turbulent ow
3.2.1. Pressure drop studies
Pressure drop studies were also carried out with compressed
air owing at different ow rates in the tube side of CFI heat
exchanger. The pressure of air was varied from 10 to 30 kgf/cm2.
Fig. 9 shows that the pressure drop decreases with increase in
pressure of the compressed air at any given ow rate. It can also
be seen from the gure that the pressure drop increases with
increase in the tube side ow rate at any given pressure of the
compressed air.

Fig. 6. Variation of Nusselt number at low Reynolds number of water in the tube
side of SHE, PHE and CFI heat exchanger.

Fig. 8. Number of transfer units for different heat exchangers.

Fig. 7. Number of merit in CFI heat exchanger as compared to SHE and PHE.

Fig. 9. Pressure drop at different values of ow rate of compressed air owing with
different pressures in the tube side of CFI heat exchanger.

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Fig. 10. Friction factor versus Reynolds number of compressed air in the tube side
of CFI heat exchanger.

Fig. 11. Pressure drop at different values of ow rates of uid owing in the shell
side of CFI heat exchanger.

The friction factor calculated from pressure drop data of

compressed air owing under turbulent ow condition in the tube
side of CFI heat exchanger is shown in Fig. 10. Based on the
experimental measurements, a new correlation for friction factor
of compressed air in the tube side of the CFI heat exchanger was
developed as
0:25

fCFI fS 1 0:051NDe

for 3  104 o NRe o 1:86  105

The maximum deviation between the experimental results and

the proposed correlation of Eq. (5) was within 710%. To the best
of our knowledge practically no experimental data for ow of
compressed air in helical coils are reported. Therefore, friction
factor measurements in the present work were compared with the
experimental data of ambient air in coiled tube reported by
Mishra and Gupta (1979). They reported the following empirical
correlation for the friction factor.
fc =fs 1 0:033log10 NHe 4
fC  fS

0:0075
p

for 1o NHe o 3  103

9
10

for 4500 oNRe o105, 6.7 o l o346 and 0 o(H/2Rc)o25.4, where

NHe is the Helical number and is represented by
"
#1=2
drv
d=Dc
NHe
:
m 1 H=pDc 2
0:25
fs is the friction factor in straight tube given as fS 0:079=NRe

11
The present experimental data of friction factor in tube side of CFI
heat exchanger were observed to be nearly 710% higher than the
data of Mishra and Gupta (1979). The friction factor correlation for
ambient air owing in the straight tube is also shown in the
gure. It can be seen that the friction factor in the present heat
exchanger is higher as compared to straight tubes.
Fig. 11 shows the variation of shell side pressure drop in the CFI
heat exchanger with ow rate of cooling water. The ow rate of
cooling water was varied from 100 kg/h to 500 kg/h. It can be seen
from the gure that the pressure drop increases with the increase
in ow rate of cooling water in the shell side of heat exchanger.
The friction factor in the shell side of the heat exchanger was
calculated on the basis of equivalent diameter of shell. This was

Fig. 12. Friction factor at various Reynolds number of uid owing in the shell side
of CFI heat exchanger.

done to take into account the effect of bafes which were present
in the shell side of the CFI heat exchanger. These bafes were used
to support the CFI tube and also provide turbulence to cooling
water owing in the shell side of heat exchanger. Fig. 12 shows the
experimental predictions of friction factor at various Reynolds
number in the shell side of heat exchanger. It was observed that
the friction factor decreases with increase in Reynolds number of
owing uid in the shell side of heat exchanger.

3.2.2. Heat transfer studies

The detailed method of calculation of heat transfer coefcients
using Wilson plot technique was reported in our previous study
[Kumar et al. (2007)]. Similar methodology was used in the
present study to calculate the overall heat transfer coefcient
when the process uid was compressed air. Overall heat transfer
coefcient was plotted at different ow rates of air at elevated
pressure of 20 kgf/cm2 in the tube side of CFI heat exchanger. It
can be seen from the Fig. 13 that the overall heat transfer
coefcient increases with increase in ow rate of compressed air
at given ow rate of coolant. The cooling media used in the
present study was either water or ambient air in the shell side of
CFI heat exchanger. It can also be seen that the overall heat
transfer coefcient increases with increase in the ow rate of
ambient air or cooling water in the shell side at constant tube side
ow rate. At tube side ow rate of 50.3 kg/h, there was nearly 2.5

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Fig. 13. Overall heat transfer coefcient in CFI heat exchanger at various ow rates
of air at pressure of 20 kgf/cm2 in the tube side for different shell side ow rates of
cooling uid.

Fig. 14. Overall heat transfer coefcient in CFI heat exchanger at various tube ow
rate of compressed air for different pressures keeping constant cooling water ow
rate of 250 kg/h in the shell side of heat exchanger.

folds increase of Uo as the cooling water ow rate in the shell side

was increased from 100 to 300 kg/h. It was observed that the
enhancement in Uo was more for cooling water as compared to
ambient air owing in shell side of heat exchanger. Fig. 14 shows
the variation of Uo with tube side ow rates of compressed air,
keeping constant cooling water ow rate (250 kg/h) in the shell
side of CFI heat exchanger. The gure shows that Uo increases with
increase in tube side ow rates. The gure also shows that
the overall heat transfer coefcient increases with the increase
in pressure of compressed air for any given tube side ow
rate. At tube side ow rate of nearly 37 kg/h, there was about
13.7% increase in Uo as the pressure was increased from 10 to
30 kgf/cm2. This may be due to change in uid properties when
the pressure of air increases from 10 to 30 kgf/cm2.
Fig. 15 shows the calculated values of Nusselt number for
compressed air owing under turbulent ow in the tube side of
CFI heat exchanger. It was observed that the Nusselt number
increases with the increase in Reynolds number of compressed air.
A new empirical correlation was developed for the heat transfer in
the CFI as
0:78 0:4
NPr
NNu 0:123NDe

for 3:8  103 oNRe o1:4  105

12

1005

Fig. 15. Variation of Nusselt number at high Reynolds number of compressed air in
the tube side of CFI heat exchanger.

Fig. 16. Overall heat transfer coefcient of CFI heat exchanger at different shell
side ow rates for various tube side ow rate of air at a pressure of 20 kg/cm2.

The maximum deviation between the correlation and the

experimental results were within 77%. The correlation
developed for heat transfer of compressed air in the tube side of
CFI heat exchanger were compared with the experimental data of
ambient air owing under turbulent ow in coiled tube as
reported by Mori and Nakayama (1967). They proposed the
following correlation.
For NPr E1
"
#
NPr
0:098
4=5
1=10
N
NNu

Re
2=3
fNRe l2 g1=5
26:2NPr  0:074
for 1  104 oNRe o2  105

13

It was observed that the Nusselt number calculated for CFI from
correlation was nearly 1214% higher than the data reported by
Mori and Nakayama (1967). This may be due to the effect of ow
inversion caused by 901 bends in CFI heat exchanger. The ow
inversions in CFI further increased the radial mixing of compressed air and enhance the heat transfer. The present experimental prediction for the heat transfer of compressed air in tube
side was also compared with the heat transfer of ambient air in

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1.051.15 times higher than straight tube even at high Reynolds

number under turbulent ow conditions. The increase in heat
transfer in CFI heat exchanger decreases with increase in Reynolds
number. Fig. 18 also shows that gain in heat transfer in CFI heat
exchanger over coiled tube is of the order of 1.041.09. It appears
at very high Reynolds number, the performance of CFI heat
exchanger may approach an asymptotic value.

4. Conclusions

Fig. 17. Nusselt number at different values of Reynolds number for uid at ambient
conditions in the shell side of CFI heat exchanger.

In the present study, experiments were carried out in

conventional shell and tube as well as plate type heat exchanger
at pilot plant scale and their performance was compared with
results reported for CFI heat exchanger by Kumar et al. (2007). It
was found that the enhancement of heat transfer in CFI heat
exchanger as compared to SHE and PHE is higher than the increase
in pressure drop. Number of transfer units for CFI heat exchanger
is higher as compared to SHE and PHE for identical process
conditions. Experiments were also carried out to investigate the
pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics of compressed air
owing under turbulent ow condition in the CFI heat exchanger
for the rst time at pilot plant scale. The friction factor as well as
Nusselt number values for compressed air in CFI heat exchanger
calculated from present work were compared with the values
reported in literature for ambient conditions in coiled tube and
straight tube. Heat transfer performance in CFI was better as
compared to coiled and straight tube even at turbulent ow
regime. The results from the experiments have been summarized
in form of new correlations for friction factor and Nusselt number
for uid owing under turbulent ow regime in CFI heat
exchanger.

Notation

Fig. 18. Number of merit in CFI heat exchanger as compared to straight tube and
coiled tube.

straight tube. It was observed that the heat transfer in the present
heat exchanger is higher as compared to the straight tubes.
Fig. 16 shows the variation of overall heat transfer coefcient
for different ow rates of water in the shell side of heat exchanger.
The gure illustrates that the overall heat transfer coefcient
increases with the increase in shell side ow rates of water for any
given tube side ow rate. It was also observed that there was
increase in Uo as the ow rate of compressed air in tube side was
increased for any given shell side ow rate. There was nearly 1.76
folds increase in Uo when the tube side ow rate was increased
from 40 to 88 kg/h, at shell side ow rate of 320 kg/h. Nusselt
numbers in the shell side of heat exchanger were calculated using
the concept of equivalent diameter. Fig. 17 shows the Nusselt
number values of water at different Reynolds number in the shell
side of CFI heat exchanger. It can be seen from the gure that the
Nusselt number increases with increase in Reynolds number at
the shell side. There was 1.62 folds increase in Nusselt number as
the Reynolds number in shell side was increased from nearly 170
to 550. This could be due to the bafes tted at shell side which
created turbulence and minimized channeling of uid owing
through it.
Fig. 18 shows that the number of merit in CFI heat exchanger to
that of straight tube. It can be observed from gure that
enhancement in heat transfer in CFI heat exchanger is nearly

Cp
d
Dc
f
g
H
L
m
NDe
NHe
NNu
NPr
NRe
P
Rc
t
T
U
v

specic heat, kJ/(kg K)

diameter of tube, m
diameter of coil, m
friction factor
acceleration due to gravity, m/s2
pitch, m
length, m
mass ow rate, kg/h
Dean number ( =NRe/Ol)
Helical number
Nusselt number
Prandtl number
Reynolds number (= rvd/m)
pressure, Kg/cm2
radius of the coil, m
shell side temperature
tube side temperature
overall heat transfer coefcient, W/m2 K
velocity, m/s

Greek letters

m
r

curvature ratio, d/Dc

dynamic viscosity, kg/m s
density of uid, kg/m3

Subscripts
c
CFI
in

curved tube
coiled ow inverter
inlet

ARTICLE IN PRESS
M.M. Mandal et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 9991007

out
s
sh
t

outlet
straight tube
shell side
tube side

Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Ministry of Chemical
and Fertilizers, GOI, India for funding the project.
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