GROUP NO.

10
Shantanu Singh (ME10B034)
Subhash S. (ME10B035)
Sunil Kumar (ME10B036)

Flow across heat exchanger

AIM:
To determine the performance of concentric tube heat exchanger in
parallel and counter flows.

APPARATUS: Concentric tube heat exchanger, 4 thermocouple

thermometers (inbuilt in system), data acquisition system, water and
heater.

THEORY:

This heat exchanger is a simple shell and tube heat exchanger. It has
two tubes, one inside the other. The outer tube is the shell. The inner
tube carries the water from the heater; the other tube carries the
water from the cold water inlet. Heat transfers between the two tubes.
The connections can be made for either parallel flow or counter flow.
This heat exchanger is in two equal parts with extra thermocouples at
the mid-point. There are 2 thermocouples at the center to help
understand the change in temperature across the heat exchanger.

The above equation is valid only in the ideal case. In real cases there is
always heat absorbed or given to the external system.

The above equation is the one used for calculation of LMTD

(Logarithmic mean temperature difference).

The above equation is used to calculate the heat transfer coefficient of

the heat exchanger. Where A is the area of contact between the 2
fluids and is equal to 0.02m2.

SYMBOLS:
TH1 - Inlet hot tube temperature in Celsius
TH2 - Center hot tube temperature in Celsius
TH3 - Outlet hot tube temperature in Celsius
TC1 - Inlet cold tube temperature in Celsius
TC1 - Center cold tube temperature in Celsius
TC3 - Outlet hot tube temperature in Celsius
VH - Volume rate of hot fluid in L/min
VC - Volume rate of cold fluid in L/min

PROCEDURE:
1. Set the connections for either parallel or counter flow as shown in
the figure.
2. Fix the volume flow rates of both cold and hot water. Set the
volume flow rate of one of them to be double of the other. This
gives better drop in temperature across the exchanger.
3. Note down the temperatures in all the thermocouples after every
3 minutes until steady state is reached. It approximately takes 20
minutes to reach steady state in both the cases.
4. Plot the temperature across the x-coordinate for both the cases.

TABLE : Heater Temperature is kept constant at 65o C

Parallel flow

Counter flow

Volume flow rate of hot water is approximately equal to that of cold

water
Parallel flow

Counter flow

RESULT:
For case with higher hot fluid flow rate(1.5 L/min) and lower cold fluid
flow rate (0.5 L/min), Cmin= CpC..
Effectiveness = CpC*(TC2-TC1)/Cmin*(TH1-TC1) = (TC2-TC1)/(TH1-TC1)

The result shows that the effectiveness of counter flow is higher than
parallel flow. These results are in accordance with the manual and
literature.
For case with hot fluid flow rate (1 L/min) and lower cold fluid flow rate
(1 L/min)
Here also, Cmin= CpC.
Effectiveness = CpC*(TC2-TC1)/Cmin*(TH1-TC1) = (TC2-TC1)/(TH1-TC1)

These results are as expected and similar to what is given in the

literature.

CONCLUSION:
Counter flow arrangement is more effective in heat exchangers than
the parallel flow arrangement.
The small length of the heat exchanger causes a problem in certain
cases. Better results can be obtained by keeping the hot fluid flow rate
much higher than the cold fluid flow rate. Even in that case the
effectiveness of counter flow is just slightly higher than parallel flow.