Pilot plant study for effective heat transfer area of coiled flow inverter.

Three new coiled flow inverter (CFI) heat exchangers with heat transfer area ( A t ) of 0.88 m 2 (4-banks), 0.44 m 2 (2-banks) and 0.22 m 2 (1-bank) were designed, fabricated and commissioned to develop a more compact heat exchanger. More than 800 experiments were carried-out in counter-flow configuration. The hot and cold fluids were used in the tube and shell side of CFI heat exchanger, respectively. Tube side flow rates were varied from 50–300 kg/h for water and 30–100 kg/h for compressed air, respectively. The shell side flow rates were varied from 100–2000 kg/h for water and 400–750 kg/h for air, respectively. The overall heat transfer coefficients of present CFI heat exchangers were found in good agreement with the results reported for the CFI heat exchangers of A t = 1.76 m 2 . The proposed CFI heat exchanger with A t = 0.22 m 2 provides 2.2–4.5 and 2–3.6 times higher overall heat transfer coefficient as compared to SHE and PHE of A t = 1.76 m 2 , respectively. The present study offers a small footprint CFI heat exchanger to meet the same heat transfer duty as compared to previously reported study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]