Experimental study of mixed convection heat transfer in vertical helically coiled tube heat exchangers

In this study the mixed convection heat transfer in a coil-in-shell heat exchanger for various Reynolds numbers, various tube-to-coil diameter ratios and different dimensionless coil pitch was experimentally investigated. The experiments were conducted for both laminar and turbulent flow inside coil. Effects of coil pitch and tube diameters on shell-side heat transfer coefficient of the heat exchanger were studied. Different characteristic lengths were used in various Nusselt number calculations to determine which length best fits the data and several equations were proposed. The particular difference in this study in comparison with the other similar studies was the boundary conditions for the helical coils. The results indicate that the equivalent diameter of shell is the best characteristic length.