Heat-Transfer Enhancement by Artificially Generated Streamwise Vorticity

Vortex-induced heat transfer enhancement exploits longitudinal and transverse pressure-driven vortices through the deliberate artificial generation of large-scale vortical flow structures. Thermal-hydraulic performance, Nusselt number and friction factor are experimentally investigated in a HEV (high-efficiency vortex) mixer, which is a tubular heat exchanger and static mixer equipped with trapezoidal vortex generators. Pressure gradients are generated on the trapezoidal tab initiating a streamwise swirling motion in the form of two longitudinal counter-rotating vortex pairs (CVP). Due to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, the shear layer generated at the tab edges, which is a production site of turbulence kinetic energy (TKE), becomes unstable further downstream from the tabs and gives rise to periodic hairpin vortices. The aim of the study is to quantify the effects of hydrodynamics on the heat- and masstransfer phenomena accompanying such flows for comparison with the results of numerical studies and validate the high efficiency of the intensification process implementing such vortex generators. The experimental results reflect the enhancement expected from the numerical studies and confirm the high status of the HEV heat exchanger and static mixer.