Heat transfer enhancement and fuel consumption reduction in heaters of CGS gas stations

In this study, the effect of turbulators (coiled wire tube insert) as a passive method for heat transfer enhancement on heater performance of Mokhtar city gate station of Yasuj city has been evaluated. To analyze the performance and the effect of geometrical parameters of turbulators and physical parameters of the flow, steady state and incompressible flow were simulated through ANSYS CFX 14.5. Shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model for modeling turbulated flow regime besides the wall has been used. Using simulation results, important performance parameters such as friction factor, Nusselt number, and thermal performance factor were calculated and deeply studied. In this study the effect of coiled wire tube insert as a turbulator on the performance of heater in two states of circular and elliptical tubes with similar cross sections has been surveyed. The result show that the spring tube insert with diameter ratio of 10 for the elliptical tube heater, and diameter ratio of 0.95, have the best performance.