The effect of symmetrical perforated holes on the turbulent heat transfer in the static mixer with modified Kenics segments

• The model takes into account the coupled effect between fluid and segment wall.
• The effects of Reynolds number and segment number on the heat transfer are evaluated.
• In view of thermal performance factor, the perforated parameters are optimized.
• The synergy between secondary flow and temperature field has been investigated.

The numerical simulation on forced convective heat transfer of water in the modified Kenics static mixer (MKSM) was investigated by the three-dimensional turbulent and steady incompressible flow of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The conservation equations were solved by using finite volume method (FVM) and the SIMPLEC algorithm scheme in ANSYS Fluent 16.1. The simulation results of Nusselt number and the friction factor in MKSM have a good agreement with the literature results. The effects of Reynolds number, perforated diameter, perforated spacing, and segment number on the heat transfer are evaluated in the range of Re = 2000–20,000 under uniform heat tube wall temperature conditions. The Nusselt number increases gradually with increasing Re. Furthermore, both the values and deviations of Nusselt number for different perforated diameter accord with an antisymmetrical tendency at the critical Re = 11,000. It could be seen that the Nusselt number and the friction factor are not sensitive to the increasing perforated spacing within a given perforated diameter. In view of thermal performance factor, the geometrical diameter and spacing of two symmetrical perforated holes are optimized. The MKSM with d/W = 0.3 and s/W = 0.6 have the best performance with the consideration of both heat transfer rate and friction loss compared to the others. Thermal performance factor decreases gradually with increasing Re which indicated that the modified Kenics segments are more effective for heat transfer in lower Re. The local and global synergies between secondary flow and temperature fields have been investigated through field synergy principle.