Size Effect on Thermal Characteristic of Tubular Heat Exchanger at Miniscale and Microscale

Abstract

The scope for the heat transfer enhancement in the tubular heat exchanger is high due to its unique property of having two separate convective heat transfer coefficients. The variation of diameter and annular space has a direct effect on the value of convective heat transfer coefficients due to their inverse relation. Thus, the strong emphasis must be given on the influence of diameter and annular space on the thermal characteristics of the tubular heat exchanger. In this numerical analysis, peculiarities in the improvement of the performance parameters are studied with the variation in the value of inlet velocities of the fluids (cold and hot), inner pipe diameter, and annular space for the combination of dimensional range such as miniscale and microscale range. The inner tube diameter is observed to be sensitive to the improvement in the performance parameter. The growth in the performance parameter of the tubular micro heat exchanger is found to be higher when both the values of diameter and annular space are in the microscale range.