Performance Investigation of a Double Pipe Heat Exchanger under Different Flow Configuration by Using Experimental and Computational Technique

Heat exchangers are widely employed in numerous industrial applications to serve the heat recovery and cooling purpose. This work reports a performance analysis of a tube in tube heat exchanger for different flow configuration under variable operating conditions. The experimental investigation was performed on a U-shaped double pipe heat exchanger set up whereas Commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics code FLUENT along with k-ε turbulence modeling scheme was implemented for the simulation study. The flow solution was achieved by implementing k-ε turbulence modeling scheme and the simulation findings were compared with the experimental results. The experimental findings were in good agreement with the simulation results. The counter-flow configuration was found to be 29.4% more effective than the cocurrent one at low fluid flow rate. Direct relationship between heat transfer rate and flow rate is observed while effectiveness and LMTD showed inverse relationship with it. The significance of inlet temperature of hot and cold stream has been evaluated, they play crucial role in heat exchange process