EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF THE CONVECTIVE HEAT TRANSFER IN A SPIRALLY COILED CORRUGATED TUBE WITH RADIANT HEATING

Abstract

The Archimedean spiral coil made of a transversely corrugated tube was exposed to radiant heating in order to represent a heat absorber of the parabolic dish solar concentrator. The main advantage of the considered innovative design solution is a coupling effect of the two passive methods for heat transfer enhancement - coiling of the flow channel and changes in surface roughness. The curvature ratio of the spiral coil varies from 0.029 to 0.234, while water and a mixture of propylene glycol and water are used as heat transfer fluids. The unique focus of this study is on specific boundary conditions since the heat flux upon the tube external surfaces varies not only in the circumferential direction, but in the axial direction as well. Instrumentation of the laboratory model of the heat absorber mounted in the radiation field includes measurement of inlet fluid flow rate, pressure drop, inlet and outlet fluid temperature and 35 type K thermocouples welded to the coil surface. A thermal analysis of the experimentally obtained data implies taking into consideration the externally applied radiation field, convective and radiative heat losses, conduction through the tube wall and convection to the internal fluid. The experimental results have shown significant enhancement of the heat transfer rate compared to spirally coiled smooth tubes, up to 240% in the turbulent flow regime.