Deployment of Helical Fins for Heat Transfer Enhancement in Internal Flows

A 3-D computational analysis has been reported in the following study to determine a better design of internally finned tube for the enhancement of convective heat transfer coefficient in, combined, developing and developed region. In this type of tube, heat transfer depends upon Reynolds number, helix angle and fin height. This kind of tubes also have a shortcoming, i.e. exorbitantly high pressure drop. For this analysis, solution is obtained for different helix angle at fixed Reynolds number and it is compared with a tube having straight triangular serrations and for different fin height, comparison is drawn against plain tube. Performance enhancement criteria is used to decide the best variants of tube. According to the results, as the helix angle and fin height keeps on increasing, convective heat transfer coefficient gets enhanced and contrary to this, the pressure drop increases. Similarly, the convective heat transfer coefficient is also directly proportional to Reynolds number.