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EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF FIN TUBE AND BARE TUBE TYPE TUBE-IN-TUBE

HEAT EXCHANGER

Conference Paper · December 2015

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Kamalesh Kulkarni
Vishwabharati Academy's College of Engineering Ahmednagar
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 Novateur Publication’s
International Journal of Innovation in Engineering, Research and Technology [IJIERT]
ICITDCEME’15 Conference Proceedings
ISSN No - 2394-3696

EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF FIN TUBE AND BARE TUBE

TYPE TUBE-IN-TUBE HEAT EXCHANGER

Kamalesh S. Kulkarni
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, VACOE,
Ahmednagar, India

Ravindra M. Ghodke
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, VACOE,
Ahmednagar, India

ABSTRACT
Heat exchangers are the devices that facilitate the exchange of heat between the two fluids that are at
different temperatures while keeping them from mixing with each other. In bare tube heat exchanger, the
heat transfer rate is minimum so in order to increase the heat transfer rate different types of fins are used.
The rate of heat transfer depends on the surface area of the fin. Rectangular and circular type fins are
popular choices for transferring the heat from the primary surface of heat exchanger. In this paper, heat
transfer rate and fin effectiveness for rectangular and circular fins were analysed for parallel flow and
counter flow arrangement and comparison is done with bare tube (tube without fin) heat exchanger.
Performance of rectangular fin is efficient than the circular fin.
KEYWORDS

Heat exchanger, types of fins, material used, LMTD, heat transfer rate, and fin effectiveness.

INTRODUCTION

Heat exchanger is a device which is used in most of the engineering applications. In conventional heat
transfer equipments the heat is transfer between the two fluids which are separated by the surface. Typical
examples of these equipments are refrigeration, vehicle engine, chemical processing plant, nuclear fuel
storage tanks etc. In general, the heat transfer is takes place from inner tubes carrying the stream of hot
fluid to stream of cold fluid by attaching the fins on the outer periphery of inner tube [1].
The rate of heat transfer depends on the surface area of the fin. The selection of any particular type of fin
mainly depends on the geometry of the primary surface. Circular fins are mostly used for primary surface
of cylindrical geometry for enhancing the rate of heat transfer. It is well known that the rate of heat
transfer from the fin reduces as the length of the fin increases, therefore there is no utilisation of heat
transfer surface to transfer the heat from the hot fluid to cold fluid. For this reason, the researcher has to
work continuously for determining the optimum fin shape that will give the maximum heat transfer rate
for specified fin volume or minimize the fin volume for a given heat transfer rate.
N. Nagarani [2] did the experimental analysis on annular circular and elliptical fins heat exchanger and
concluded that rate of heat transfer is from elliptic fin is more than that of the circular fin. It has been
shown that the fin efficiency is higher for elliptic fin than the circular fin.
Sikindar Baba.Md, Nagakishore.S,Prof.M.Bhagvanth [3] has done the work on two- stage air compressor
and concluded that the heat transfer rate of heat exchanger using fins is more than that of bare tube heat
exchanger. Also M.R. Jafari Nasr and A.T. Zoghi [1] had concluded that the by using Low finned tube
rather plain tubes, not only can the performance of the heat exchanger be improved but also the number of
shells required for a given can be reduced.
Vekariyamukesh V., G. R. Selokar and Amitesh Paul [5]reported that the aluminium material used for the
fin reduces the cost of raw material and also improves the product performance.
However from the forgoing literature review shows that no combined work is attempted so far. So in this
paper, aluminium material is used for the rectangular and circular fin. The objective of to find out heat
transfer rate and fin efficiency of rectangular and circular fin and comparison is made with heat
exchanger without fin.

1|Page
 Novateur Publication’s
International Journal of Innovation in Engineering, Research and Technology [IJIERT]
ICITDCEME’15 Conference Proceedings
ISSN No - 2394-3696

EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS
Figure 1 shows the pictorial view of experimental setup used in the present study for the estimation of
heat transfer on the rectangular fin attached in first tube and circular fin attached in second tube. The last
one is bare tube heat exchanger. The rectangular and circular fin made of aluminium having thermal
conductivity 203 W/mK. In this experimental setup the outer tube is made of stainless steel and inner tube
is made of aluminium material. The primary as well as secondary fluid is water. There is one heater to
heat up the water. The hot water is passing through the inner tube and the cold water is passing through
the outer tube. There is flow arrangement provided in such a way that we can operate heat exchanger for
parallel flow as well as counter flow. The fin dimensions for rectangular fin is 25mm*25mm*750mm and
the diameter of circular fin is 28mmso that cross-sectional area is approximately same for both the fins.
The readings are taken for different inlet temperatures of hot fluid like 75◦C, 70◦C and 65◦C and inlet
temperature of cold fluid is kept atmospheric and readings are tabulated for both fins and tube without
fins also for parallel flow and counter flow.

Figure 1. Pictorial view of experimental setup

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Readings are taken on the experimental setup with different temperature conditions for parallel flow and
counter flow and heat transfer rate and fin effectiveness is calculated for the rectangular and circular fin
for the same flow arrangement.
Table 1. Result table for counter flow

Temperatures
Sr. LMTD Heat transfer Fin
Types of fin
No. T1 T2 t1 t2 (°C) rate(KW) effectiveness

75 60 34 45 27.95 2.6866 1.3762

1. Rectangular 70 58 34 43 26.50 2.1978 1.2857
65 55 34 41 22.47 1.7094 1.1666
75 59 34 44 27.89 2.442 1.25
2. Circular 70 57 34 42 25.42 1.9536 1.1428
65 55 34 41 22.47 1.7094 1.666
75 62 34 42 30.43 1.9536 -
3. Without Fin 70 61 34 41 27.99 1.7094 -
65 57 34 40 23.99 1.4652 -

2|Page
 Novateur Publication’s
International Journal of Innovation in Engineering, Research and Technology [IJIERT]
ICITDCEME’15 Conference Proceedings
ISSN No - 2394-3696

Table 2. Result table for parallel flow

Temperatures
Sr. LMTD Heat transfer Fin
Types of fin
No. (°C) rate(KW) effectiveness
T1 T2 t1 t2

75 60 34 43 27.26 2.1978 1.2857

1. Rectangular 70 59 34 42 25.32 1.9536 1.3315
65 58 34 40 23.91 1.4652 1.5
75 64 34 42 30.52 1.9536 1.1428
2. Circular 70 61 34 41 27.22 1.7094 1.1650
65 54 34 39 22.04 1.221 1.25
75 65 34 41 31.74 1.7094 -
3. Without Fin 70 61 34 40 27.83 1.4672 -
65 55 34 38 23.30 0.9768 -

3 2.6866
2.442
Heat Transfer Rate in kW

2.5 2.1978
1.9536 1.9536
2 1.7094 1.70941.7094
1.4652
1.5
1
0.5
0
T1=75 t1=34 T1=70 t1=34 T1=65 t1=34

Inlet Temperature for Hot and Cold Fluid

Rectangular Circular Bare type

Figure 2. Graph of Heat Transfer Rate for counter flow

2.5 2.1978
1.9536 1.9536
Heat Transfer Rate in kW

2 1.7034 1.7034
1.4672 1.4652
1.5 1.221
0.9768
1
0.5
0
T1=75 t1=34 T1=70 t1=34 T1=65 t1=34

Inlet Temperature for Hot and Cold Fluid

Rectangular Circular Bare Type

Figure 3. Graph of Heat Transfer Rate for Parallel Flow

3|Page
 Novateur Publication’s
International Journal of Innovation in Engineering, Research and Technology [IJIERT]
ICITDCEME’15 Conference Proceedings
ISSN No - 2394-3696

As shown in figure 2and figure 3 the heat transfer rate is taken on the Y-axis and the inlet temperature
conditions of hot and cold fluid is taken on the X-axis.
The figure 2 is for the counter flow and figure 3 is for the parallel flow. The heat transfer rate is greater in
the rectangular fin which is 2.6866 kW in counter flow and 2.1978 kW in parallel flow. The heat transfer
rate is increased by 22.24 %.
The inlet temperature of hot fluid is changed as 750C, 700C, 650C and heat transfer is plotted on chart.

1.5
Fin Effectiveness

1.3762 1.2857
1 1.25 1.1666 1.166
1.1428
0.5

0
T1=75, t1=34 T1=70, t1=34 T1=65, t1=34

Inlet Temperature for Hot and Cold Fluid

Rectangular Fin Circular Fin

Figure 4. Graph of Fin Effectiveness in counter flow

2
Fin Effectiveness

1.5
1.5
1 1.2857 1.3315
1.1428 1.165 1.166
0.5

0
T1=75, t1=34 T1=70, t1=34 T1=65, t1=34

Inlet Temperature for Hot and Cold Fluid

Rectangular Fin Circular Fin

Figure 5. Graph of Fin Effectiveness in parallel flow

Figure 4 and figure 5 shows the comparison of fin effectiveness in counter flow and parallel flow
respectively. From the analysis the fin effectiveness is more for rectangular fin than the circular fin at
different temperature conditions.

CONCLUSION

It is observed that the heat transfer rate is higher in counter flow than that of the parallel flow as can be
seen from the figure 2 and figure 3 that the driving force for heat transfer is constant in counter flow
unlike parallel flow in which the driving force constantly decreases along with the length.
It is observed that fin effectiveness of the rectangular fin is greater than the circular type of fin.
The Log Mean Temperature Difference of tube without using fin is greater than the others but
effect of reduced surface area dominates thereby nullifying the effect of increased log mean temperature
difference resulting in lower heat transfer rate than the others.

4|Page
 Novateur Publication’s
International Journal of Innovation in Engineering, Research and Technology [IJIERT]
ICITDCEME’15 Conference Proceedings
ISSN No - 2394-3696

REFERENCES

[1] M.R. Jafari Nasr and A.T. Zoghi. (2003). Full analysis of low finned tube heat exchangers. IJE
TRANSACTIONS A: Basics Vol. 16, No. 3 (September 2003) 217-232
[2] N. Nagarani (2010). Experimental heat transferAnalysis on annular circular and elliptical fins.
International Journal of Engineering Science and TechnologyVol. 2(7), 2010, 2839-2845.
[3] Sikindar Baba.Md, Nagakishore.S, Prof.M.Bhagvanth (2014). Thermal Analysis on a Finned Tube
Heat Exchanger of a Two Stage Air Compressor. International journal for research in applied science and
engineering technology (ijraset)Vol. 2 Issue V, May 2014 ISSN: 2321-9653.
[4] Shiv Kumar Rathore and Ajeet Bergaley (2012). Comparative analysis of finned tube and bared tube
type shell and tube heat exchanger. International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology
(IJEIT) Volume 2, Issue 1, July 2012
[5] Vekariyamukesh V., G. R. Selokar and Amitesh Paul (2012). Optimization and Design of Heat
Exchanger with Different Materials. IJMEMS, 5(1) January-June 2012, pp. 37-42.
[6] Y.G. Park and A. M. Jacobi (2001). Air-side performance characteristics of round- and flattube heat
exchangers: a literature review, analysis and comparison.

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