Vortically enhanced heat transfer and mixing: state-of-the-art and recent results

Longitudinal and transverse pressure-driven vortices induced by shear instabilities behind vortex generators play a crucial role in convective transport phenomena. The proven influence of these turbulence promoters on heat and mass transfer enhancement has led to their incorporation in modern multifunctional heat exchangers/reactors. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate experimentally the effects of hydrodynamics on the transfer processes accompanying such flows. The high-efficiency vortex (HEV) is an innovative static mixer and a low-energy-consumption heat exchanger designed to exploit these types of vortices. Results obtained in turbulent flow with embedded vorticity in an HEV static mixer are compared with numerical results in the literature. Both numerical and experimental results confirm the high energy efficiency of the HEV static mixer flow