Effect of wire pitch on capacity of single staggered wire and tube heat exchanger using computational fluid dynamic simulation

Abstract

Single staggered is a design development of normal wire and tube heat exchanger that wires are welded with staggered configuration on two sides. Capacity of wire and tube heat exchanger is the ability of the heat exchanger to release heat. The objective of this study is to analyse the effect of wire pitch (pw) on capacity of single staggered wire and tube heat exchanger. The research method uses Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulation by ANSYS Fluent to analyse heat transfer of wire and tube; also to analyse airflow at surface the wire and tube. The simulation is experimentally validated by measuring temperatures at some points of wire and tube. Based on results, temperature contours increasing capacity of heat exchanger depend on smaller wire pitch that the highest value is 72.02 W at pw 7 mm. The reason is smaller wire pitch increases area of convection heat transfer surface. Whereas, airflow patterns show air move slowly at the wire and tube surface and flow with free convection. This study contributes new design of wire and tube heat exchanger with CFD and it can be applied to improve the performance of this heat exchanger in refrigeration system and other applications.