Convective Heat Transfer through Thick-Walled Pipe

In the present study, convective heat transfer phenomenon has been investigated experimentally as well as numerically in a thick-walled pipe for laminar flow as well turbulent flow. Steady laminar and turbulent flow of water with uniform heat flux on the outer wall of stainless steel pipe is considered for the experimental investigation. The range of Reynolds number varies from 454 to 13627. The fluid flow and thermal behavior of the test section is simulated numerically using commercial CFD software FLUENT̈.For experimental investigation of heat transfer characteristics of thick-walled circular pipe, an experimental setup has been fabricated. Distilled water was allowed to flow through a thick-walled stainless steel pipe while heat was applied externally on the outer wall surface to the wall. Temperature of wall has been measured along the length of pipe. With wall temperature and mean fluid temperature, the local heat transfer coefficient has been measured along the length of pipe. With the use of local heat transfer coefficient, local Nusselt number of the pipe has been calculated. It was found that as the Reynolds number increases, the local Nusselt number also increases.The experimental results are compared with numerical results obtained from CFD software FLUENT̈. It is seen that the maximum deviation between experiments and predictions is less than ± 15%.