Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 12661273

www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Numerical studies of a double-pipe helical heat exchanger

Timothy J. Rennie, Vijaya G.S. Raghavan *

Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, 21 111 Lakeshore Rd., Sainte Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada H9X 3V9

Accepted 28 October 2005

Available online 9 December 2005

Abstract

A double-pipe helical heat exchanger was numerically modeled for laminar uid ow and heat transfer characteristics under dif-
ferent uid ow rates and tube sizes. Two dierent tube diameters were used. The overall heat transfer coecients were calculated
for both parallel ow and counterow. Validation of the simulations was conducted by comparing the Nusselt numbers in the inner
tube with those found in literature; the results fell within the range found in the literature. The greatest thermal resistance was found
in the annular region. The annulus Nusselt number was correlated with a modied Dean number, and showed a strong linear
relationship.
 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Double-pipe; Heat exchanger; Numerical; Helical

1. Introduction majority of the work involving helically coiled heat

exchangers has focused on either constant wall temper-
Helically coiled tubes can be found in many applica- ature or constant wall heat ux boundary conditions
tions including food processing, nuclear reactors, com- [14]. However, there is a third common boundary condi-
pact heat exchangers, heat recovery systems, chemical tion that is often not explored, and that is for liquid-to-
processing, low value heat exchange, and medical equip- liquid heat exchangers (the tube wall separates the two
ment [1,5,13,15]. The pipe curvature causes centrifugal uids), where neither the heat ux, nor the wall temper-
forces to act on the owing uid, resulting in a second- ature, is constant. There are a few references that discuss
ary ow pattern perpendicular to the main axial ow. designing shell-in-tube helical heat exchangers [7,12].
This secondary ow pattern generally consists of two However, the calculation procedures are not based on
vortices, which move uid from the inner wall of the data from helically coiled tubes. For example, Hara-
tube across the center of the tube to the outer wall. burda [7] assumes that a bank of tubes can be used as
Upon reaching the outer wall it travels back to the inner an approximation for helical coils in the calculation of
wall following the wall. The secondary ow increases heat transfer coecients.
heat transfer rates as it moves uid across the tempera- Designing a double-pipe helical heat exchanger, such
ture gradient. Thus, there is an additional convective as in Fig. 1, requires heat transfer coecients for the
heat transfer mechanism, perpendicular to the axial both sides of the tube, the ow rate in the helical tube
ow, which does not exist in straight tube heat exchang- and the ow rate in the annulus, along with desired inlet
ers (except when produced by buoyancy forces). The and outlet temperatures. Some information exists on the
heat transfer in a curved annulus, however this is also
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 514 398 8731; fax: +1 514 398
limited to constant wall temperature gradient in the
8387. axial direction [9], making it dicult to predict the heat
E-mail address: vijaya.raghavan@mcgill.ca (V.G.S. Raghavan). transfer coecients on the inner wall of the annulus.

1359-4311/$ - see front matter  2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2005.10.030
 T.J. Rennie, V.G.S. Raghavan / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 12661273 1267

Nomenclature

a constant DT1 temperature dierence at inlet

A surface area of tube DT2 temperature dierence at outlet
b constant UHF uniform heat ux boundary condition
C capacity rate UWT uniform wall temperature boundary condi-
cp specic heat tion
d diameter of inner tube V average velocity
D diameter of annulus
De Dean number Greek symbols
h heat transfer coecient e eectiveness
k thermal conductivity f boundary layer thickness ratio
L length of heat exchanger l dynamic viscosity
LMTD log-mean temperature dierence q density
m_ mass ow rate
NTU number of transfer units Subscripts
Nu Nusselt number asy asymptotic value
Pr Prandtl number c cold
q heat transfer rate cur curved tube
Q parameter dened by Akiyama and Cheng h hot
[2,3] i inside/inner
U overall heat transfer coecient max maximum
R radius of curvature min minimum
T temperature o outside/outer

2. Objective

The objective of this work was to determine the heat

transfer characteristics for a double-pipe helical heat
exchanger by varying the size of the inner tube and the
mass ow rates (within the laminar region) in both the
annulus and in the inner tube. These objectives were car-
ried out for both parallel ow and counterow heat
exchangers. A computational uid dynamics package
(PHOENICS 3.3) was used to predict the ow and tem-
perature proles in a double-pipe helical heat exchanger.

3. Materials and methods

z
3.1. CFD modeling
r
Geometries for the heat exchanger were created in
AutoCAD 14 and exported as stereolithography les.
Two dierent coils were created; the dimensions are
d labeled in Fig. 1 and the values are given in Table 1.
Each of the heat exchangers had a length of 2p (one full
Di revolution) and the pitch was 0.115 m.
The geometry les were imported into a commercial
Do
computational uid dynamics software based on a con-
trol volume-nite dierence formulation (PHEONICS
Fig. 1. Schematic of the geometry of heat exchanger and coordinate 3.3). A cylindrical coordinate system was used with a
system. mesh size of 30 40 80 in the axial, horizontal, and
1268 T.J. Rennie, V.G.S. Raghavan / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 12661273

Table 1 The overall heat transfer rates were based on the outer
Dimensions of heat exchangers surface area, Ao, of the inner tube.
Coil # Do (m) Di (m) d (m) R (m) Heat transfer coecients were calculated in a similar
1 0.100 0.060 0.042 0.800 manner along the length of the tube using the data from
2 0.100 0.040 0.028 0.800 each cross-section. This resulted in 29 heat transfer coef-
cients describing the ow and temperature along the
length of the heat exchanger. Heat transfer coecients
vertical directions, respectively. Inlets and outlets were were calculated for both the inner tube and the annulus.
located at each end of the coil. The boundary conditions For these calculations, average bulk temperatures and
associated with the inlets specied the inlet velocities in average temperature of the coil at each cross-section
the axial direction. The outer surface of the heat exchan- were used.
ger was set to be adiabatic and the inner coil was set to
allow conductive heat ow through the tube. Fluid
3.3. Calculations of eectiveness-NTU
properties and material properties of the heat exchanger
are given in Table 2.
An eectiveness-NTU (number of transfer units)
Simulations were performed using four dierent mass
approach was employed as part of the validation proce-
ows in the inner tube (0.00835, 0.02504, 0.04174, and
dure of the numerical model. The eectiveness is the
0.05843 kg s1). These resulted in inner Dean numbers
ratio of the actual amount of heat transfer to the maxi-
in the range of 38350. For each inner ow rate, three
mum possible heat transfer for the given heat exchanger.
trials were performed with annulus mass ow rates that
The eectiveness is plotted versus the NTUmax to obtain
were 1/2, 1, and 2 times the inner ow rate. For exam-
graphs that contain curves of constant Cmin to Cmax
ple, the three annulus mass ow rates associated with
ratios, where Cmin and Cmax are the minimum and max-
the inner mass ow rate of 0.00835 kg s1 were
imum values of m_ c cpc and m_ h cph . NTUmax is dened as
0.00418, 0.00835, and 0.0167 kg s1. Both parallel ow
[18]:
and counterow congurations were used for all combi-
nations of mass ow rates. Ao U o
NTUmax 3
The total number of simulations performed was 48 C min
(two tube diameters four inner ow rates three
The eectiveness-NTU was plotted for the cases of
annulus ow rates two ow directions). The output
Cmin/Cmax = 1 and Cmin/Cmax = 0.5, as these were the
of the simulations included the inlet and outlet veloci-
two cases related to the ow rates used in the trials.
ties, mass ow rates and enthalpy rates, as well as velocity,
The ratio of Cmin to Cmax of unity refers to the minimum
pressure, and temperature elds at 30 specied cross-
eectiveness for the heat exchanger and a ratio of Cmin
sections.
to Cmax of nil is the maximum eectiveness of the heat
exchanger.
3.2. Calculation of heat transfer coecients
The theoretical eectiveness, e, for a parallel ow heat
exchanger is given by the following equation [18]:
The overall heat transfer coecient, Uo, was calcu-
lated using [18]:   
C min
q 1  exp 1  NTU 1
Uo 1 C max
Ao LMTD e 4
C min
1
LMTD is the log-mean temperature dierence, calcu- C max
lated based on the inlet temperature dierence, DT1,
and the outlet temperature dierence, DT2 [18]: 3.4. Model validation
DT 2  DT 1
LMTD   2
DT 2 The numerical procedure was validated by comparing
ln the results of the Nusselt numbers for the ow through
DT 1
the helical coil and comparing these to Nusselt numbers
from literature. The validation trials were performed
with both constant heat ux and constant wall temper-
Table 2 ature boundary conditions. There are a number of cor-
Fluid properties and material properties of the heat exchanger
relations in the literature for the Nusselt number as a
Property Fluid Coils function of the Dean number for both the uniform heat
Density (kg m3) 998.2 7881.8 ux and the uniform wall temperature boundary condi-
Thermal conductivity (W m1 K1) 0.6 16.0 tions. Mori and Nakayama [10,11] developed the fol-
Specic heat (J kg1 K1) 4181.8 502.0
lowing correlation for both boundary conditions:
 T.J. Rennie, V.G.S. Raghavan / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 12661273 1269
 
0:864 p 2:35 mass ow rates. The correlations of Mori and Nakay-
Nucur De 1 p 5
f De ama [10,11] and Akiyama and Cheng [2,3] are shown
for Pr = 7. There is signicant variation between the
where f is the boundary layer thickness ratio for Pr > 1
results of these dierent correlations. The results from
and is given by
s this study (Pr = 7.03) fall within the range of the corre-
(  )
2 77 1 lations, tting best with those of Akiyama and Cheng
f 1 1 6 [2,3]. The dierence in the Nusselt numbers for the con-
11 4 Pr2
stant wall heat ux and the constant wall temperature,
Akiyama and Cheng [2,3] determined the Nusselt for all practical purposes are negligible, corresponding
number for uniform wall temperature and uniform heat to the conclusions of Mori and Nakayama [11]. The
ux using a parameter Q, dened as Q = (De1/2 Pr)1/4. Nusselt numbers shown in Fig. 2 are the average of
Their results for the uniform wall ux are applicable the Nusselt numbers along the rst turn of the coil.
for Q P 3.5, Pr P 1 and Nuasy = 4.36 and are described Though this is a case of developing ow, the average
by the following correlation [3]: Nusselt number is a decent approximation of the asymp-
totic Nusselt number in this work as little variation was
Nucur
0:234Q1  1:15Q1 29:2Q2  164Q3 316Q4 noted along the length of the coil. Akiyama and Cheng
Nuasy
[4] studied the thermal entrance region for a constant
7 wall temperature and showed that as the Dean number
For the uniform wall temperature, the range of param- and the Prandtl number increased the entrance region
eters was Q P 3.0, Pr P 1, and Nuasy = 3.66. The corre- was shortened. The entrance region for a Dean number
lation was [2]: of 37.1 and a Prandtl number of 10 became asymptotic
by a Graetz number of roughly 100. For the simulations
Nucur
0:270Q1  1:48Q1 23:2Q2  120Q3 212Q4 used in this study, and under similar Dean (=37) and
Nuasy Prandtl (=7.03) numbers, the ow would become stable
8 14.1% around the rst turn. Furthermore, the Nusselt
The values of 4.36 and 3.66 are the asymptotic Nus- number is not constant up to the asymptotic value, with
selt numbers for heat transfer in a straight pipe with uni- part of the range with a Nusselt number above the
form heat ux and uniform wall temperature boundary asymptotic value and part below. As the Dean number
conditions, respectively. The results were also validated is increased, the variation tends to be less.
with experimental data and can be found in Rennie and Furthermore, an eectiveness-NTU chart was pro-
Raghavan [16]. duced for the parallel ow conguration (Fig. 3). On
this chart, the theoretical curves are plotted for capacity
ratios of 0.0, 0.5, and 1.0. The simulation data ts well
4. Results and discussion with these curves. This result is expected for a heat
exchanger with a constant overall heat transfer coe-
4.1. Model validation cient. In the case presented here, there is a develop-
ing ow which results in non-uniform heat transfer
Fig. 2 shows the results from this study for both a
uniform heat ux and a uniform wall temperature for
the two dierent coil diameters and the four dierent 100
90

100
80
Effectiveness (%)

Akiyama and Cheng, [3] (UHF) 70

Akiyama and Cheng, [2] (UWT)
60
Present work (UFH)
Present work (UWT) 50
Cmin/Cmax = 0.5
Mori and Nakayama, [11] (UWT, UWF) 40
Nu i

Cmin/Cmax = 1
10 30
Cmin/Cmax = 0
20
Parallel Cmin/Cmax = 1
10
Parallel Cmin/Cmax = 0.5
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

1 NTU
0.1 1 10 100 1000
De i Fig. 3. Eectiveness-NTU graph for parallel ow in the double-pipe
helical heat exchanger. Experimental (symbols) and theoretical (lines)
Fig. 2. Nusselt number versus Dean number in the helical coil. are shown.
1270 T.J. Rennie, V.G.S. Raghavan / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 12661273

coecients along the length of the tube. The calculations Table 3

for the eectiveness were based on the average overall Correlation results for overall heat transfer coecients based on Eq.
(9)
heat transfer coecient, and there is little deviation from
the theoretical predictions. This further validates the Trial Parallel ow Counterow
statement by Dravid et al. [6] that the eects of develop- d (m) m_ i =m_ o a b R2 a b R2
ing ow are negligible on the overall heat transfer in a 0.028 0.5 10.45 0.45 0.999 11.75 0.43 0.999
helical heat exchanger. 0.042 0.5 8.88 0.50 0.999 11.82 0.44 0.994
0.028 1.0 12.58 0.36 0.991 14.25 0.34 0.990
0.042 1.0 12.33 0.39 0.997 12.73 0.39 0.999
4.2. Overall heat transfer coecients 0.028 2.0 17.55 0.26 0.972 16.47 0.30 0.999
0.042 2.0 15.54 0.31 0.999 18.67 0.25 0.975
Fig. 4 shows the overall heat transfer coecients ver-
sus the inner Dean number for the case of parallel ow.
Both parallel ow and counterow (data not shown)
had overall heat transfer coecients that were nearly overall heat transfer rate. There is a dierence in the
similar, for the same given ow rates. The ratio of the overall heat transfer coecients between the two dier-
overall heat transfer coecients (parallel ow divided ent tube sizes. This dierence is in part due to the annu-
by counterow) for a given case range from 0.94 to lus heat transfer coecient, which would most likely be
1.07, with the majority of the ratios slightly above unity, higher for a smaller gap size. Furthermore, both tubes
in favor of the counterow. The overall heat transfer are curved with the same radius of curvature; hence
coecients increase with increasing inner Dean number. the large tube is curved with a greater curvature ratio
However, the signicance of the increase is a function of than the smaller tube, which results in greater secondary
the ratio of the mass ow rates. Referring to Fig. 4, the ow eects. Though these results are shown with the
ratio of the mass ow rates has a signicant eect on the Dean number as the independent variable, the Dean
overall heat transfer coecient, raising the overall heat number may not fully describe the complexities of this
transfer coecient when the ow rate in the annulus is ow. In fact, there are several relationships for heat
increased. The relationship between the overall heat transfer coecients (in the form of Nusselt numbers)
transfer coecient and the inner Dean number is corre- for helically coiled heat exchangers that are not depen-
lated in the form of a power law function: dent solely on the Dean number. Seban and McLaugh-
lin [17] correlated the Nusselt number as a function of
U o a Deb 9
the friction factor and the Reynolds number, while Jans-
The results of the correlations for these cases are sen and Hoogendoorn [8] used correlations solely on the
shown in Table 3. From these relationships, it can be Reynolds number and Prandtl number for certain
shown that increasing the inner Dean number has a ranges of the Dean number. For higher Dean numbers
greater eect on the overall heat transfer coecients (100 < De < 8300), Janssen and Hoogendoorn [8] corre-
when the outer ow rate is high. When the annulus ow lated the Nusselt number with the Reynolds number,
rate is high and the inner ow rate is low, the limiting Prandtl number and the curvature ratio, rather than
heat transfer is in the inner tube, hence any changes in combining the Reynolds number and the curvature ratio
the inner ow rate will have signicant eects on the into the Dean number.
The advantage in using the heat exchanger in the
counterow conguration versus the parallel ow con-
160 guration is shown in Fig. 5. The gure shows the per-
cent increase in heat transfer expected when the ow is
140
changed from parallel ow to counterow. The highest
120 rates of increase are for low Dean numbers in the inner
Uo (W m K )
-2 -1

100 tube. As the ow rate is increased the relative advantage

is signicantly decreased. The cases in which the inner
80
ow rate is double the ow rate in the annulus produce
60 d = 0.042 m, mi/mo = 0.5 higher percent increases.
d = 0.042 m, mi/mo = 1.0
40 d = 0.042 m, mi/mo = 2.0
Fig. 6 shows the relationship between the heat trans-
d = 0.028 m, mi/mo = 0.5 fer rate and the mass ow rate in the inner tube for the
20 d = 0.028 m, mi/mo = 1.0
case of parallel ow. The data points are divided into the
d = 0.028 m, mi/mo = 2.0
0 three dierent mass ow ratios and the two dierent
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
tube sizes. This allows for a more intuitive understand-
Dei
ing of the eectiveness of the dierent mass ow ratios
Fig. 4. Overall heat transfer coecient versus the inner Dean number and tube sizes on the heat transfer rate than the plots
for parallel ow. of heat transfer coecients versus the inner Dean
 T.J. Rennie, V.G.S. Raghavan / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 12661273 1271

35 4.3. Inner Nusselt numbers

Increase in Heat Transfer (%)

d = 0.042 m, mi/mo = 0.5

30 d = 0.042 m, mi/mo = 1.0
d = 0.042 m, mi/mo = 2.0
The Nusselt numbers for the inner tube are slightly
25 d = 0.028 m, mi/mo = 0.5 aected by the ow in the annulus due to the hydrody-
d = 0.028 m, mi/mo = 1.0 namic and thermodynamic developing ow in each sec-
20 d = 0.028 m, mi/mo = 2.0
tion. For the parallel ow case, increasing the ow
15 rate in the annulus tends to increase the inner Nusselt
number, from anywhere from 0.5% to 2.5% (data not
10 shown). However, for the counterow case, the increase
5
in the outer ow rate tends to decrease the Nusselt num-
ber for low inner Dean numbers, but had the opposite
0 eect at higher inner Dean numbers, where the Nusselt
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Dei
number increased with increased ow rates in the annu-
lus. For the counterow case, increasing the outer ow
Fig. 5. Percent increase in heat transfer when comparing parallel ow rate resulted in a Nusselt number dierence anywhere
to counterow congurations versus the inner Dean number. from 2.1% to 1.5% (data not shown).

4.4. Annulus Nusselt numbers

8000
d = 0.042 m, mi/mo = 0.5
Nusselt numbers for the annulus were calculated and
7000 d = 0.042 m, mi/mo = 1.0 correlated to a modied Dean number. The modied
d = 0.042 m, mi/mo = 2.0 dean number for the annulus is calculated as it would
6000 d = 0.028 m, mi/mo = 0.5
d = 0.028 m, mi/mo = 1.0
be for a normal Dean number, except that the curvature
5000 d = 0.028 m, mi/mo = 2.0 ratio is the dierence between the outer and inner diam-
q (W)

4000
eters of the annulus divided by the radius of curvature of
the outer tube. The characteristic length of the Reynolds
3000
number embedded in this Dean number is the hydraulic
2000 radius of the annulus. Thus the modied Dean number
1000
is
  1=2
0 qV D2o  D2i Do  Di
De 10
0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 l Do Di R
Inner Mass Flow Rate (kg s-1 )
The Nusselt number for the annulus is calculated
Fig. 6. Heat transfer rate in the heat exchanger versus the mass ow using the hydraulic radius of the annulus as the charac-
rate in the inner tube. teristic length. The correlation developed between the
Nusselt number and the Dean number for the parallel
and counterow congurations are shown in Fig. 7.
number. For any given inner mass ow rate, there are
six dierent values, corresponding to the dierent com-
binations of mass ow ratios and tube sizes. Increasing
30
the tube size resulted in an increase in the total heat
transfer rate. Increasing the inner tube diameter changes 25
the ow pattern, ow intensity and available surface Nu = 0.075De + 5.36
R2 = 0.9918
area for heat transfer. For the ow in the inner tube, 20
the velocity is decreased which tends to result in a lower
Nuo

15
Reynolds number. At the same time, the curvature ratio
is increased, which tends to increase secondary ows.
10
However, for these changes, the inner Dean number
decreases, which should result in lower heat transfer 5
coecients. The increase in the inner tube diameter
(while keeping the outer tube the same diameter), 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
increases the available heat transfer surface area for
both uids. Furthermore, increasing the tube size Deo
decreases the cross-sectional area for uid ow in the Fig. 7. Nusselt number versus the annulus Dean number for parallel
annulus, resulting in an increased ow velocity, opposite ow and counterow using the annulus gap divided by the curvature of
to that found in the inner tube. radius as the curvature ratio in the Dean number.
1272 T.J. Rennie, V.G.S. Raghavan / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 12661273

For the range of Dean numbers tested, the best correla- 5. Conclusions
tion was linear.
A computational uid dynamics package (PHOE-
4.5. Thermal resistances NICS 3.3) was used to numerically study the heat trans-
fer characteristics of a double-pipe helical heat
It is important to look at the individual thermal resis- exchanger for both parallel ow and counterow. Vali-
tances of the heat exchanger to determine the location of dation runs were performed with the boundary condi-
the largest resistances, as decreasing these will have a tions of constant wall temperature and constant heat
much greater eect than trying to decrease resistances ux. The results of these simulations were well within
that are already quite low. The total thermal resistance the range of results from the literature for helical coils.
(UoAo) of the heat exchanger is calculated by summing Overall heat transfer coecients were calculated for
the reciprocals of all the individual thermal resistances inner Dean numbers in the range of 38350. The results
[18]: show an increasing overall heat transfer coecients as
the inner Dean number is increased; however, ow con-
1 ditions in the annulus had a stronger inuence on the
U o Ao   11
1 lnro =ri 1 overall heat transfer coecient. Thermal resistances

Ai h i 2pkL Ao h o were calculated for the annulus, inner tube and the coil.
The total thermal resistance was, for the most part,
Fig. 8 shows the thermal resistances versus the overall highly dominated by the annulus, indicating that in
heat transfer coecient. The overall heat transfer coe- the design of double-pipe helical heat exchangers, this
cient is highly dependent on the thermal resistance of the is the area that should receive the most attention to
annulus, and is weakly aected by changes in the ther- eectively increase the overall heat transfer eectiveness.
mal resistance in the inner tube. For the most part the Furthermore, increasing the size of the inner tube
thermal resistance in the inner tube is fairly small and resulted in lower thermal resistances in the annulus,
there is little trend between the inner thermal resistance though the thermal resistance in the inner tube remained
and the overall heat transfer coecient. For example, fairly constant.
the thermal resistance for the inner tube with a diameter Nusselt numbers for the annulus were correlated with
of 0.028 m stays practically constant for any overall heat a modied Dean number resulting in a strong linear
transfer coecient above 80 W m2 K1. These data relationship between the Nusselt number and the modi-
points are the ones with the highest inner Dean num- ed Dean number for the range of ow rates used in this
bers, but there is little advantage in running at these study.
higher Dean numbers if the thermal resistance in the
annulus is the limiting factor for heat transfer. There-
fore, in designing a heat exchanger, particular attention
Acknowledgements
should be focused on decreasing the thermal resistance
of the limiting condition, which has been shown to be
The authors are grateful to FCAR (Fonds pour la
the annulus region for the work in this study.
Formation de Chercheurs et lAide a` la Recherche)
and NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada) for the nancial assistance
0.03
for this study.
Annulus, d = 0.028 m
Thermal Resistance (K W )
-1

0.025 Annulus, d = 0.042 m

Inner tube, d = 0.028 m

0.02 References
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