Numerical Investigation of the Fully-Developed Periodic Flow Field for Optimal Heat Transfer in Spirally Corrugated Tubes

Even though the corrugated tube is a widely used technique to enhance transfer heat, the exact heat transfer enhancing mechanism remains relatively un-documented. Most studies attribute the favourable heat transfer characteristics to a swirling flow being present at higher corrugation.
In this study, a systematic approach relying on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used to study and compare the heat transfer characteristics with the detailed flow field in the spirally corrugated tubes. By comparing the flow in 12 different spirally corrugated tubes at a fixed Reynolds number of 5000, this study compares the flow field with the surface averaged Nusselt number to gain valuable insight into which flow phenomena causes favourable heat transfer characteristics. While the flow at low corrugations approximates the non-corrugated tube, higher corrugations of h/D creates a significant tangential velocity that enhances heat transfer. At this corrugation height, there is a corrugation length of approximately l/D=1.5 that maximises the tangential velocity component and consequently heat transfer.