Thermo-Hydraulic Performance of Spring Tape Inserts in a Circular Channel in Transitional Flow Regime

Abstract

In this work, forced convection experiments were carried out to investigate the variation of heat transfer and pressure drop inside a uniformly heated circular duct fitted with full-length spring tape inserts of varying spring ratios in a transition flow regime. Air was used as the working fluid medium, and experiments were conducted for three constant heat fluxes of 2, 3, and 4 kW-m−2 with Reynolds numbers varied from 502 to 10936 to cover all three flow regimes. For a plain channel heated with 2 kW/m2 of heat flux, the transition begins at a Reynolds number of 2897 and terminates at a Reynolds number of 3783 which brings the transition Reynolds number width of 886. For the same heat flux, a channel with spring tape having a spring ratio of 3, the transition begins at Reynolds number 661 and ends at 1734 while for the case of spring ratio 5, the transition begins at 1305 and ends at 2226. For constant heat flux conditions, a decrease in the spring ratio results in the early onset of transition and which in turn increased the transition length. Predictive Nusselt number and friction factor correlations for different flow regimes have also been presented.