Correlations of flow maldistribution parameters in an air cooled heat exchanger

M. A. Habib*, R. Ben-Mansour, S. A.M. Said, J. J. Al-Bagawi, K. M. Al-Mansour

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

The present paper provides correlations of flow maldistribution parameters in air-cooled heat exchangers. The flow field in the inlet header was obtained through the numerical solution of the governing partial differential equations including the conservation equations of mass and momentum in addition to the equations of the turbulence model. The results were obtained for different number of nozzles of 2-4, different inlet flow velocities of 1-2.5 m/s and different nozzle geometries in addition to incorporation of a second header. The results are presented in terms of mass flow rate distributions in the tubes of the heat exchanger and their standard deviations. The results indicate that the inlet flow velocity has insignificant influence on maldistribution while the nozzle geometry shape has a slight effect. Also, the results indicate that reducing the nozzle diameter results in an increase in the flow maldistribution. A 25% increase is obtained in the standard deviation as a result of decreasing the diameter by 25%. Increasing the number of nozzles has a significant influence on the maldistribution. A reduction of 62.5% in the standard deviation of the mass flow rate inside the tubes is achieved by increasing the number of nozzles from 2 to 4. The results indicate that incorporating a second header results in a significant reduction in the flow maldistribution. A 50% decrease in the standard deviation is achieved as a result of incorporation of a second header of seven holes. It is also found that the hole-diameter distribution at the exit of the second header has a slight influence on the flow maldistribution. Correlations of the flow maldistribution in terms of the investigated parameters are presented.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)143-165
Number of pages23
JournalInternational Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids
Volume56
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 20 Jan 2008

Keywords

  • Correlations
  • Flow maldistribution
  • Heat exchanger

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computational Mechanics
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Applied Mathematics

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