Coil-In-Tube Cross Flow Heat Exchanger In order to demonstrate the fluid stream and convection heat transfer modeling

capabilities of RadTherm, a coil-in-tube cross flow heat exchanger was simulated (shown below). The heat exchanger has hot engine oil (126 degrees C at the entrance) flowing in the inner coil and water (90 degrees C at the entrance) flowing in the opposite direction in the larger cylinder. Using the same dimensions and the inlet and outlet temperatures from the simulation, the same heat transfer problem is solved analytically below. In order to keep the analytical solution simple, convection to the outside environment and all radiation was turned off (zero emmisivity). The equations below solve for the overall length of the heat exchanger. The calculated length is compared to the actual (modeled) length.

Screen shots of the whole coil-in-tube heat exchanger taken from RadTherm

Screen shot of the inner coil taken from RadTherm Inlet and OutletTemperatures (from Radtherm): Toil.i := 126 C Twater.i := 90 C Toil.o := 115.8 C Twater.o := 90.72 C

Dimensions of the model heat exchanger: Dhelix := 16 mm Dcyl.o := 220 mm Dcyl.i := 120 mm Lactual := 10.2 m

Fluid Properties of the water and oil (taken at mean temperatures): Tmean.oil := 390 K Cp.oil := 2294 J kg K oil := .011 N s m
2

Tmean.water := 365 K k oil := .135 W m K Pr oil := 187 oil := 830.6 kg m

3

s.oil := .0186 N

s m
2

Cp.water := 4209

J kg K

water := 306 10 N

s m
2

k water := .677

W m K

Pr water := 1.91 water := 963.4

kg m
3

Calculation of mass flow rates in the inner coil (oil) and outer cylinder (water): Voil := 1.5 L min L min moil := Voil m
3

1000 L

oil

1 min 60s

moil = 0.021

kg s kg s

Vwater := 10

mwater := Vwater water

1 min 60s

mwater = 0.161

Calculation of Reynolds number, Nusselt number, and convection coefficient for the oil fluid stream: ReD.oil := 4 moil Dhelix oil ReD.oil = 150.221

.14 .333 ReD.oil Proil oil NuD.oil := 1.86 10 D m s.oil helix

h oil := NuD.oil

k oil Dhelix h oil = 51.777

kg sK
3

Calculation of Reynolds number, Nusselt number, and convection coefficient for the water fluid stream (flowing through the annulus without the coils): mwater

ReD.water := 4

( Dcyl.o + Dcyl.i) water

.8 .4

ReD.water = 1965.012 NuD.water = 12.848

NuD.water := .023 ReD.water Pr water h water := NuD.water k water

(Dcyl.o Dcyl.i)

h water = 86.981

kg sK
3

Calculation of the log-mean temperature difference with a correction factor for cross flow with one fluid mixed:

P :=

Toil.o Toil.i Twater.i Toil.i

R :=

Twater.i Twater.o Toil.o Toil.i

P = 0.283

R = 0.071 The correction factor is for a single pass, cross-flow heat exchanger with one fluid mixed and the other unmixed. A single pass is assumed because the temperature of the water remains constant. Because of the constant water temperature, the correction factor has no effect.

F := .99

Tlm :=

F ( Toil.i Twater.o) ( Toil.o Twater.i)

( Toil.i Twater.o) ln ( Toil.o Twater.i)

Tlm = 29.99 C

Calculation of the overall length of the inner coil: q := moil Cp.oil ( Toil.i Toil.o)
2

q = 485.876

kg m A sK
2

U :=

1 1 h oil + 1 h water q U Dhelix Tlm L = 9.931 m 100 Lactual The calculated coil length is 9.931m which is only 2.64% shorter than the actual length. The error can be attributed to small differences in the calculation of convection coefficients. Actual heat exchanger length is 10.2m. U = 32.457 kg sK
3

L :=

%error := ( L Lactual)

%error = 2.642