Annals of the Assembly for International Heat Transfer Conference 13

ISBN 1-56700-225-0 / CD 1-56700-226-9

Year 2006

B. Salam
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology, Bangladesh

D. A. McNeil
School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, UK

B. M. Burnside
School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, UK

Data were obtained from a staggered bundle of 82 horizontal, titanium tubes arranged on a pitch-to-diameter ratio of 1.33. Each row contained either 5 or 6 active tubes. The 5 active tube rows had inactive half tubes on the walls to help simulate in-bundle performance. The tubes had an outside diameter of 19.05 mm, an inside diameter of 18.05 mm and a length of 150 mm. Downward flowing steam had approach velocities of 10−30 m.s⁻¹ and overall steam-to-inlet cooling water temperature differences of 5−15 K at an approach pressure of 50 mbar. The cooling water resistance was varied on each row to allow the overall and cooling water resistances to be correlated by a 'best fit' line. This allowed the overall resistance to be found at the required conditions, from which the overall heat transfer coefficient was determined for each row. A data reduction method was used to calculate the shell side heat transfer coefficients, which were compared with predictions from some isolated tube methods that required a characteristic area to be selected. The comparison revealed that isolated tube correlations could predict the heat transfer in a bundle when the maximum flow area was used as the characteristic area. Other investigators working with different geometries and at different conditions have reached different conclusions about which area to use, suggesting that a single area may not exist. Inundation was found to have a minimal effect.

CSN-02 pages DOI: 10.1615/IHTC13.p25.20 Download article

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