International Journal For Research & Development in Technology

Volume: 2, Issue: 2, AUGUST-2014

ISSN (Online):- 2349-3585

ENHANCEMENT OF HEAT TRANSFER IN

TUBE-IN-TUBE HEAT EXCHANGERS
USING TWISTED INSERTS
Jiju jose1 ,Hemanth a kumar2 ,Deepak tom3
Varun deep4,Bibin varkey5
12345

Department Of Mechanical Engineering,

Saintgits College of Engineering, Kottayam,Kerala.
AbstractHeat exchangers have several industrial and
engineering applications. There are different methods to
enhance heat transfer in heat exchangers. Passive technique
of heat transfer is the most economical and best suited one.
The role of inserts in internal forced convection has been
widely acknowledged as a passive device in the heat transfer
enhancement. One of such technique is introduction of
twisted inserts which enhances the heat transfer coefficient.
Twisted aluminium inserts when placed in the path of the
fluid flow, creates a high degree of turbulence resulting in
an increase in the heat transfer rate. By placing inserts, it is
expected that the benefits due to the increased heat transfer
coefficient overcome the higher cost involved because of the
increased frictional losses. The work mainly focuses on
increasing the heat transfer of tube-in-tube heat exchangers
by using twisted aluminium inserts. The results obtained
from the tube with twisted aluminium insert are compared
with those without twisted insert using standard properties of
heat transfer (LMTD & Effectiveness). The relations based
on the data gathered during this work for predicting the heat
transfer coefficient of the horizontal pipe with twisted taped
insert are proposed. According to the results, in order to
obtain maximum heat transfer, the twist ratio must be at the
lowest level.

A spiral flow heat exchanger is a class of heat exchanger

designs. It is the most common type of heat exchanger in
water refineries and other large chemical processes, and is
suited for higher-pressure applications. As its name implies,
this type of heat exchanger consists of a spiral (a large
pressure vessel) with a bundle of tubes inside it. One fluid
runs through the tubes, and another fluid flows over the tubes
(through the shell) to transfer heat between the two fluids. The
set of tubes is called a tube bundle, and may be composed by
several types of tubes: plain, longitudinally finned etc.
Increasing energy demand caused high cost of energy as well
as material, which has resulted in an increased effort to
produce high performance heat exchanger equipment. Heat
transfer augmentation techniques are frequently used in heat
exchanger systems in order to enhance heat transfer and
increase the thermal performance. Among various techniques,
insertion of twisted tape swirl generator is one of the most
promising techniques, which has been widely adopted for heat
transfer augmentation. The presence of twisted inserts as
shown in fig 1, caused reduction of the hydrodynamic or
thermal boundary layer thickness which leads to greater
convective heat transfer. Hence, twisted tape inserts have been
widely used as the continuous swirl flow devices for
enhancing the heat transfer performance in heat exchanger
systems and applied in many engineering applications.

Index Terms Gouging, Conventional cutting, Abrasive

wear, Weldability, Toughness

I.INTRODUCTION
The development of high performance thermal systems has
stimulated interest in methods to improve heat transfer. Heat
exchangers have several industrial and engineering
applications. The design procedure of heat exchangers is quite
complicated, as it needs exact analysis of heat transfer rate and
pressure drop estimations apart from issues such as long-term
performance and the economic aspect of the equipment. The
major challenge in designing a heat exchanger is to make the
equipment compact and achieve a high heat transfer rate using
minimum pumping power. Techniques for heat transfer
augmentation are relevant to several engineering applications.

fig 1: Twisted inserts

In recent years, the high cost of energy and material has
resulted in an increased effort aimed at producing more
efficient heat exchange equipment. Furthermore, sometimes
there is a need for miniaturization of a heat exchanger in
specific applications, such as space application, through an
augmentation of heat transfer. The heat transfer rate can be
improved by introducing a disturbance in the fluid flow, but in

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International Journal For Research & Development in Technology

Paper Title:- Enhancement of heat transfer in tube-in-tube Heat
Exchangers using Twisted Insert (Vol.2, Issue 2)
the process pumping power may increase significantly and
ultimately the pumping cost becomes high. Therefore, to
achieve a desired heat transfer rate in an existing heat
exchanger at an economic pumping power.
Nowadays, twisted-tape inserts have widely been applied for
enhancing the convective heat transfer in various industries,
due to their effectiveness, low cost and easy setting up. Energy
and material saving consideration, as well as economical, have
led to the efforts to produce more efficient heat-exchanger
equipment. Therefore, if the thermal energy is conserved, the
economical handling of thermal energy through heatexchanger will be possible. The development of high
performance thermal systems has stimulated interest in
methods to improve heat transfer.
As a heat exchanger becomes older, the resistance to heat
transfer increases owing to fouling or scaling. These problems
are more common for heat exchangers used in chemical
industries and marine applications. In this case the heat
transfer rate can be improved by introducing a disturbance in
the fluid flow by different enhancement technologies.
The goal of enhanced heat transfer is to encourage or
accommodate high heat fluxes. The heat transfer techniques
enables heat exchanger to operate at smaller velocity, but still
achieve the same or even higher heat transfer coefficient. This
means that a reduction of pressure drop, corresponding to less
operating cost. Heat transfer augmentation techniques refer to
different methods used to increase rate of heat transfer without
affecting much the overall performance of the system. These
techniques are used in heat exchangers. Some of the
applications of heat exchangers are-in process industries,
thermal power plants, air-conditioning equipments,
refrigerators, radiators for space vehicles, automobiles etc.

II. EXPERIMENTAL WORK

The various factors that determine the selection of the
materials are its physical and chemical properties, availability
of the material, quality and cost.
A. Properties
The material selected must possess the necessary properties
for the proposed application. The various requirements to be
satisfied can be weight, surface finish, rigidity, ability to
withstand environmental attack from chemicals, service life,
reliability etc. The following four types of principle properties
of materials decisively affect their selection
Physical
Mechanical
From manufacturing point of view
Chemical
The various physical properties concerned are melting point,
thermal Conductivity, specific heat, coefficient of thermal
expansion, specific gravity, electrical conductivity, magnetic
purposes etc.
The various Mechanical properties Concerned are strength in
tensile, Compressive shear, bending, torsional and buckling
load, fatigue resistance, impact resistance, elastic limit,
endurance limit, and modulus of elasticity, hardness, wear

ISSN (O):- 2349-3585

resistance and sliding properties. The various properties

concerned from the manufacturing point of view are,
Cast ability
Weld ability
Surface properties
Shrinkage
Deep drawing etc.
B. Quality required
This generally affects the manufacturing process and
ultimately the material. For example, it would never be
desirable to go casting of a less number of components which
can be fabricated much more economically by welding or
hand forging the steel.
C. Availability of material
Some materials may be scarce or in short supply, it
then becomes obligatory for the designer to use some other
material which though may not be a perfect substitute for the
material designed. The delivery of materials and the delivery
date of product should also be kept in mind.
D. Cost
As in any other problem, in selection of material the cost of
material plays an important part and should not be ignored.
Sometimes factors like scrap utilization, appearance, and nonmaintenance of the designed part are involved in the selection
of proper materials.

III. WORKING PRINCIPLE

In this project, the cold water is taken as the inlet and the hot
water is used as the recycling fluid. There are two co-axial
pipes, where the cold water flows through the inner pipe and
hot water recirculates through the outer pipe. The water
circulates in a counter-flow arrangement. There are five
thermometers. Two thermometers in the inlet and exit of the
inner pipe, two thermometers in the inlet and exit of the outer
pipe and one for the hot water temperature measurement. The
readings are taken, initially without inserts and later by
placing them alternately. Initially, the two valves are opened,
so that both hot and cold water circulates through their
respective pipes. When the water flows in counter-flow
(without placing inserts), heat transfer between the hot and
cold fluid takes place. Since heat transfer always takes place
from higher degree to lower degree, heat from the hot water
gets transferred to cold water.
This heat transfer process is called convection. Since, there is
no pumping device between the hot water tank and the heat
exchanger, the process is called free-convection.
By convection process, it preheats the cold water thereby
utilizing (recovering), the waste heat, and finds application in
many industrial applications. From the literature survey, it is
inferred that the twisted tape insert provides considerable
increase in heat transfer rate by formation of a swirling flow
and increasing the turbulence intensity close to the tube wall.
By placing inserts in the inner tube, it mixes the bulk flow

Copyright 2014- IJRDT

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International Journal For Research & Development in Technology

Paper Title:- Enhancement of heat transfer in tube-in-tube Heat
Exchangers using Twisted Insert (Vol.2, Issue 2)
well and therefore performs better in laminar flow, because in
laminar flow the thermal resistance is not limited to a thin
region. Placing of inserts causes flow blockage, and this
blocking increases the pressure drop and leads to viscous
effects, because of a reduced free flow area. The increase in
heat transfer rate of the twisted-tape inserts is mainly
influenced by tape-induced swirl or vortex motion created by
the twist in the flow.
A. Specifications
The experimental study on passive heat transfer using twisted
aluminium tapes were carried on in a double pipe heat
exchanger having the specifications as listed below:Inner pipe diameter = 3.81cm
Outer pipe diameter = 6.25cm
Heat transfer length = 150cm
Material of construction = Cu
Material of twisted tape = aluminium
Thermometer temperature range = 0o C to 100o C
Pump rating: 0.5HP
B. fabrication
The aluminium tapes of size 1.5in, thickness about 3mm and
length 12ft were first cut into 3 equal length (122cm). Then
the ends were tightened in the clamps and fixed on the lathe
one end being fixed on the tool part side and the other on the
chuck side. The chuck was then rotated slowly by hand, while
the angle was being held in tension, to give it a desired twist.
Two twisted tapes with varying twist ratios were fabricated.

ISSN (O):- 2349-3585

tapes with varying twist ratios were fabricated as shown in

figure.

IV. PROCEDURE
Twist Ratio (y) of the inserts is calculated.
Twist Ratio, y = H/di
Di = Inside diameter of the tube, m
H = Linear distance of the tape for 180 rotation, m.
Water level in both tanks (cold and hot water tanks), is
maintained to a particular level. Water to be flown throw the
annulus side is first heated to a set temperature in a water bath
of capacity 90 lts. When the set point is attained, the water at
room temp was allowed to flow through the inner pipe of the
exchanger. Hot water flows through the annulus side at a
constant flow rate and thus exchanging heat with the cold
water on the tube side. For each of the flow rates of the cold
water, the temperatures T1, T2, T3, T4 is noted down only after
the temperatures attains a constant value. Both the valves are
opened, and the time for 10cm rise was taken. Manometer
readings were recorded. Discharge, LMTD, friction factor,
effectiveness was calculated from the obtained values. The
above mentioned steps were repeated by placing the two
inserts of different twist ratios.

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A. observations
The following observations were obtained with the
experimental setup, and are shown in table. All the readings
were taken after the steady state was reached.

C. Inserts
1.Mass flow rate ( kg/s )
Aluminium tape of 1.21m, thickness 0.06m and width
0.0381m was taken as the insert. It was twisted under careful
guidance to obtain the desired twist ratios.

fig 2: Twisted insert with y = 5.25

Then the ends were tightened in the clamps and fixed on the
lathe one end being fixed on the tool part side and the other
on the chuck side.

Without insert
With insert ( twist
ratio = 8.0 )
With insert ( twist
ratio = 5.25 )

Hot water
0.042
0.042

Cold water
0.182
0.182

0.042

0.182

2.Time for 10 cm rise of water (sec)

Hot water
Without insert
64.28
With insert ( twist
64.28
ratio = 8.0 )
With insert ( twist
64.28
ratio = 5.25 )

Cold water
29.62
29.62
29.62

3.Temperatures (C)
Without insert
With insert ( twist
ratio = 8.0 )
With insert ( twist
ratio = 5.25 )

fig 3: Twisted insert with y = 8.00

Tc1
27
27

Tc2
33
35

Th3
58
58

Th4
53
51

27

36

58

50

The chuck was then rotated slowly by hand, while the angle
was being held in tension, to give it a desired twist. Two flat

Copyright 2014- IJRDT

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International Journal For Research & Development in Technology

Paper Title:- Enhancement of heat transfer in tube-in-tube Heat
Exchangers using Twisted Insert (Vol.2, Issue 2)
B. Equations used
Q1
Q2
Qavg

mc Cp (Th3 Th4)
mh Cp (Tc2 Tc1)
(Q1 + Q2) / 2

=
=
=

= {(Th4 Tc1) (Th3 Tc2)}/ ln {(Th4 Tc1) /

(Th3 Tc2)}
= d Lh
= Cmin(Thi Tci )

L.M.T.D.
A
Qmax

Effectiveness
= Qavg / Qmax
U = Qavg / (A LMTD)
.3 values obtained
Mass flow rate (hot water) = 0.042 kg/s
Mass flow rate (cold water) = 0.182 kg/s
Time for 10 cm rise of hot water = 64.28 sec
Time for 10 cm rise of cold water = 29.62 sec

Properties
Area (m2)
Heat
transfer
rate (W)
L.M.T.D (C)
Max.
heat
transfer
rate
(W)
Overall
heat
transfer
coefficient
(W/m2 C)
Effectiveness

Table 6.2 Result

No twist
Twist ratio y
= 8.0
0.1077
0.1077
2725.735
3663.625

Twist ratio
y = 5.25
0.1077
4132.569

25.496
5451.474

23.496
5451.474

22.496
5451.474

992.649

1447.77

1705.686

0.49

0.67

0.758

We have successfully completed the project and various

results were observed. It is observed that the heat transfer rate
for our heat exchanger is greater when twisted inserts are
used. Heat transfer rate increases with lowest values of twist
ratios.
LMTD was calculated for the three cases and its values were
found out
1. For simple tube in tube heat exchanger without insert was
23.4 0C
2. For insert of twist ratio 8.00 was 20.93 0C
3. For insert of twist ratio 5.25 was 17.92 0C
Heat transfer effectiveness increases as twist ratio decreases.
From the three comparative analyses we have done, it can be
concluded that more heat was absorbed by the cold water as
the angle of twist in the tube was increased. This may be due
to the turbulence of water as it passes through the twist and the
increase in the physical contact time between the contacting
surfaces.

CONCLUSION

ISSN (O):- 2349-3585

operate at smaller velocity, but still achieve the same or even

higher heat transfer rate. This means that a reduction of the
pressure drop, corresponding to less operating cost, may be
achieved. All these advantages have made the heat transfer
enhancement technology attractive in the heat exchanger
applications. With tube insert technology, additional
exchangers can often be avoided, and thus significant cost
saving becomes possible.The goal of enhanced heat transfer is
to encourage or accommodate high heat fluxes. This results in
reduction of the heat exchanger size, which generally leads to
lesscapital cost. The pressure drop and the heat transfer
coefficient increase as the degree of twist in the tapes and
angles goes on increasing. With tube insert technology,
additional exchangers can often be avoided and thus
significant cost saving becomes possible As a heat exchanger
becomes older, the resistance to heat transfer increases owing
to fouling or scaling. These problems are more common for
heat exchangers used in chemical industries and marine
applications. In this case the heat transfer rate can be improved
by introducing a disturbance in the fluid flow by different
enhancement technologies (breaking the viscous and thermal
boundary layer).

REFERENCES
[1]Smith Eiamsa-ard a, Pongjet Promvonge, 2010,
Performance assessment in a heat exchanger tube with
alternate clockwise and counter-clockwise twisted-tape
inserts, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 53 :
13641372.
[2]P. Bharadwaj, A.D. Khondge, A.W. Date, P.
Bharadwaj, A.D. Khondge, A.W. Date, 2009, Heat transfer
and pressure drop in a spirally grooved tube with twisted tape
insert, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 52
:19381944
[3]M.M.K. Bhuiya , A.S.M. Sayema,b, M. Islamc, M.S.U.
Chowdhury d, M. Shahabuddin, 2013, Performance
assessment in a heat exchanger tube fitted with double counter
twisted tape inserts, International Communications in Heat
and Mass Transfer 50 : 2533
[4]Alberto Garca, Juan P. Solano, Pedro G. Vicente,
Antonio Viedma, 2007, Enhancement of laminar and
transitional flow heat transfer in tubes by means of wire coil
inserts, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 50 :
31763189
[5]Alimohammad Karami, Ehsan Rezaei, Mohsen
Shahhosseni, Masood Aghakhani, 2012, Optimization of
heat transfer in an air cooler equipped with classic twisted tape
inserts using imperialist competitive algorithm, Experimental
Thermal and Fluid Science, 38 : 195200
[6]Paisarn Naphon, Tanapon Suchana, 2011, Heat transfer
enhancement and pressure drop of the horizontal concentric
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The heat transfer enhancement enables the heat exchangers to

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