Experimental investigations on the effect of the spiral helical fins & flow channel routing inside flowing water stream on the heat exchanger performance in tropical environment

ABSTRACT

The rapid economic growth of the Southeast Asian countries brought proportional stress on the air-conditioning sector. So, Ground Source Heat Exchangers (GSHE) is a cheap and efficient alternative for such air-conditioning units. Thermal performance of GSHE has optimised to determine the influence of variation in various parameters. The rate of heat transfer varied from 50.15 kW – 215.43 kW at varying mass flow rate 1–3 kg/m3s and 5–6 kg/m3s for hot and cold water. At a helix angle (i.e. 75^o, 82⁰ and 89⁰), the rate of heat transfer decreases ~29 – 4%. 20-2%, and 18-3% respectively. With increasing the rpm from 60 to 210, the rate of heat transfer reduced to 200 kW-35 kW, respectively. With the further increase from 210 to 360rpm, the rate of heat transfer reduced to 120–20 kW, respectively. By increasing the length of the circular base pipe up till 2 m, rate of heat transfers first went up till 250–75 kW and then reduced down to 130–40 kW. With increasing the length further up till 3 m, it first raised till 275–100 kW and then reduced till 150–70 kW.

KEYWORDS:

• Heat transfer
• ground Source Heat Exchangers
• helix angle
• flow rate
• revolution per minute
• residence time

Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Department of Hydraulics and Hydraulic and Pneumatic Systems, South Ural State University, Lenin prospect 76, Chelyabinsk, 454080, Russian Federation for their support to this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. The disclosure statement has been inserted. Please correct if this is inaccurate.