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Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 1058–1065

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Applied Thermal Engineering


journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Experimental investigation of single phase convective heat transfer coefficient


in a corrugated plate heat exchanger for multiple plate configurations
T.S. Khan a, M.S. Khan a,*, Ming-C. Chyu b, Z.H. Ayub c
a
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, GIK Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, Topi, Swabi NWFP 23640, Pakistan
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 79409-1021, USA
c
Isotherm Inc., 7401 Commercial Blvd., East Arlington, TX 76001, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Corrugated plate heat exchangers have larger heat transfer surface area and increased turbulence level
Received 4 September 2009 due to the corrugations. In this study, experimental heat transfer data are obtained for single phase flow
Accepted 19 January 2010 (water-to-water) configurations in a commercial plate heat exchanger for symmetric 30°/30°, 60°/60°,
Available online 22 January 2010
and mixed 30°/60° chevron angle plates. Experiments were carried out for Reynolds number ranging
from 500 to 2500 and Prandtl number from 3.5 to 6.5. Experimental results show significant effect of
Keywords: chevron angle and Reynolds number on the heat transfer coefficient. Based on the experimental data,
Plate heat exchanger
a correlation to estimate Nusselt number as a function of Reynolds number, Prandtl number and chevron
Single phase
Heat transfer
angle has been proposed.
Nusselt number Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Chevron angle

1. Introduction plate heat exchangers. In these studies symmetric chevron angle


plate configurations were used. Pressure drop and heat transfer
Extensive effort has been made in the past to experimentally was reported to increase with increase in chevron angle.
investigate the heat transfer characteristics of plate heat exchang- Longo and Gasparella [15] carried out experiments using water
ers. Data have been published for different types of chevron, her- as a working fluid and developed Nusselt number correlation.
ringbone and wash board plate heat exchangers. The earliest They used modified Wilson plot technique and incorporated
efforts in this field date back to the late fifties of the last century. variable fluid property effects. Experiments were conducted on
Troupe et al. [1] carried out their study using water and wash herringbone type plate heat exchanger with chevron angle of
board type plates. Their work could be considered an earliest effort 65°. This part of their work was intended to support two phase
to develop correlations for plate heat exchangers. This work was heat transfer experimentation; hence their correlation is consid-
later extended by Buonopane et al. [2] and Crozier et al. [3]. Clark ered a calibration correlation to be used for their two phase
[4], Leuliet et al. [5,6] and Rene et al. [7] also reported heat transfer experimentation.
and hydraulic data for plate heat exchangers. There are relatively fewer studies related to the effects of mixed
Emerson [8–10] was perhaps the first to report data on heat chevron angle configuration. Marriot [16], Chisholm and Wanni-
transfer and frictional pressure drop for laminar and transition re- arachchi [17], Heavner et al. [18] and Muley and Manglik [19] con-
gion flows, using chevron type plate heat exchanger. However, de- sidered mixed chevron angle configurations in their studies.
tailed and complete information about plate geometry was not Marriott [16] used two symmetric and a mixed chevron configura-
reported. Savostin and Tikhonov [11] made an attempt to system- tion for his experimental study. The symmetric configurations in-
atically investigate effects of chevron angle plates on Nusselt num- cluded b = 32.5°/32.5° and 65°/65° while b = 32.5°/65° was used
ber and friction factor for water. They used plates of chevron angle, as a mixed arrangement. Pressure drop was reported to be much
b in the range of 0° 6 b 6 72.2°. Okada et al. [12] studied effects of higher compared to the heat transfer enhancement with an in-
chevron angle of 30°, 45°, 60° and 75° on Nusselt number and pres- crease in chevron angle. Heavner et al. [18] investigated effects
sure drop. Mass transfer measurement technique was used by of mixed chevron angles for an extended range of plates. They car-
Rosenblad and Kullendorff [13] and Focke et al. [14] to evaluate ef- ried out experiments for b = 23°/23°, 23°/45°, 45°/45°, 23°/90° and
fects of chevron angle on thermal and hydraulic characteristics of 45°/90° for 400 < Re < 10,000. Heat transfer and pressure drop
were found to increase with increasing chevron angle. However,
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +92 938 271858; fax: +92 938 271889. quantitatively, their results are quite different from other reported
E-mail address: khan@giki.edu.pk (M.S. Khan). works.

1359-4311/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2010.01.021
T.S. Khan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 1058–1065 1059

Nomenclature

A effective heat transfer surface area (m2) Greek symbols


Ax channel flow area (m2) b chevron or corrugation angle
b corrugation depth or mean channel spacing (m) DTLMTD log-mean temperature difference (K)
cp specific heat (kJ/kg K) l dynamic viscosity (kg/m s)
Dh hydraulic diameter (m) r fluid density (kg/m3)
h convective heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K) u surface enlargement factor
k thermal conductivity (W/m K)
m mass flow rate (kg/s) Subscripts
Nu Nusselt number avg average
Pc corrugation pitch (mm) c cold stream
Pr Prandtl number h hot stream
Q heat load (kW) i inlet fluid condition
Re Reynolds number max maximum
t plate thickness (m) o outlet fluid condition
T temperature (K) w wall
U overall heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K)

Muley and Manglik [19] considered two symmetric 30°/30° and transfer correlations available in literature and heat transfer corre-
60°/60° and a mixed chevron 30°/60° configurations in their single lation developed in the present study are tabulated in Table 1.
phase experimental investigations on heat transfer and isothermal It should be noted that most of the previous studies provide
frictional pressure drop. Both Nusselt number and friction factor only partial details on test conditions and plate geometry. The heat
were reported to increase with increasing chevron angle, however, transfer enhancement characteristics of plate heat exchangers
frictional factor was reported to increase more rapidly as compared could be fully utilized in the industrial applications only if accurate
to the Nusselt number. Based on the experimental data they have correlations are available for Nusselt number and frictional pres-
reported correlations for heat transfer and pressure drop. Warn- sure drop with all the necessary details. However, lack of data is
akulasuriya and Worek [20] investigated heat transfer and pres- still a barrier in the use of plate heat exchangers in industry. Pri-
sure drop of a viscous absorbent salt solution in a commercial mary aim of present work is to investigate thermal performance
plate heat exchanger. Overall heat transfer coefficient and Nusselt of a plate heat exchanger. This investigation is focused on develop-
number are reported to increase with Reynolds number while ing a single phase heat transfer correlation for a commercially
friction factor decreased. Based on the experimental data, correla- available plate heat exchanger with different chevron angles, and
tions for Nusselt number and friction factor were proposed. corrugation depths in two symmetric and a mixed plate configura-
Tovazhnyanski et al. [21] investigated thermo-hydraulic character- tion. The proposed correlation also includes varying viscosity ef-
istics of plate heat exchanger with different chevron angle plates. fects. In the present study, each commercially available plate
Both heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of the fluid were configuration in addition to having a different chevron angle also
reported to increase with an increase in the chevron angle. Ayub has different corrugation depth, b. Past studies either did not men-
[22] presented a detailed review of available single phase correla- tion corrugation depth or used the same b and changed chevron
tions on plate heat exchangers. Some of the single phase heat angle only.

Table 1
Experimental parameters of present study and some previously reported studies.

Reference b° u Pc/b De or Dh Re Pr Correlation


(mm)
Chisholm and 30–80 1000–40,000 5.0 b 0:66
Nu ¼ 0:72Re0:59 u0:41 ½30  Pr0:4
Wanniarachchi [17]
Heavner et al. [18] 23, 34, 56.5, 45, 400–10,000 3.3–5.9 Nu ¼ CðuÞ1m Rem Pr0:5 ðll Þ0:17
w
67.5
Muley and Manglik [19] 30, 45, 60 1.29 3.6 5.08 600–10,000 2.0–6.0 1
 0:14
Nu ¼ CðbÞDðuÞRe p1ðbÞ
Pr ll
3
w

Okada et al. [12] 30, 45, 60, 75 1.147, 1.294, 4.55 8.0 400–15,000 0:66 0:4
Nu ¼ 0:1528Re Pr ; b ¼ 30
1.412 Nu ¼ 0:2414Re0:64 Pr0:4 ; b ¼ 45
0:65
Nu ¼ 0:3174Re Pr0:4 ; b ¼ 60
Nu ¼ 0:4632Re0:62 Pr0:4 ; b ¼ 75
Talik et al. [23,24] 60 1.22 1.55 4.65 1450–11,460, 2.5–5.0, 70– Nu ¼ 0:248Re0:7 Pr0:4
10–720 450 Nu ¼ 0:2Re0:75 Pr0:4
Focke et al. [14] 0, 30, 45, 60, 80, 1.464 2.0 10.0 100–10,000 Nu ¼ CRem Pr0:50
90
Thonon [28] 30, 45, 60, 75 50–15,000 Nu ¼ CRem Pr3
1

Maslov and Kovalenko 60 50–20,000 Nu ¼ 0:63Re1=3 Pr1=3 ; 0:1 < Re < 15


[32] Nu ¼ 0:78Re0:5 Pr1=3 ; 50 < Re < 20; 000
Rosenblad and 60 1.21 4.0 60–2415 Nu ¼ 0:289Re0:697 Pr1=3
Kullendorff [13]
Hessami [29] 45, 60 1.11 4.5 11 200–1800
Longo and Gasparella [15] 65 4.0 4.0 350–1100 5–10 Nu ¼ 0:277Re0:766 Pr0:333
Present study 30, 45, 60 1.117 3.68, 3.36, 3.9, 5.1, 500–2500 3.5–6.5  k
Nu ¼ CðbÞRemðbÞ Prn ll
2.84 6.3 w
1060 T.S. Khan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 1058–1065

2. Experimentation Table 2
Important geometric characteristics of the chevron plate.

2.1. Experimental facility Characteristic Description


Chevron angle, Typically varying from 20° to 65°, b is the measure of
Experiments were carried out using a plate heat exchanger with b softness (small b, low thermal efficiency and pressure
commercial chevron plates made of stainless steel with chevron drop) and hardness (large b, high thermal efficiency and
pressure drop) of thermal and hydraulic characteristics of
angle, b of 30° and 60°. The surface enlargement factor, u for all
plates. Some authors (e.g., [22]) define ‘‘p/2b” as the
the plates was 1.117. Three plates were installed, providing two chevron angle
fluid streams in counter flow arrangement. Schematic of the exper- Surface u is the ratio of developed area (based on corrugation
imental facility is shown in Fig. 1. The modular design of test facil- enlargement pitch, Pc, and plate pitch, p) to the projected area (viz.
ity provides operational flexibility and control of experimental factor, u Lw  Lp, Lw = Lh + Dp, and Lp = LvDp)
Corrugation b = pt, the difference between plate pitch, p, and the
parameters. A 200 l capacity insulated hot water tank comprising
depth or plate thickness, t
eight immersion heaters of capacities ranging between 2 and mean
3 kW each was used. The desired temperature of water at the inlet channel
of the plate heat exchanger, PHE, was controlled to an accuracy of spacing, b
Channel flow Ax is the minimum flow area between plates and is
±0.1 °C. The plate heat exchanger had hot water on one side and
area, Ax estimated as product of plate corrugation depth and
municipal water on the other side. The flow rate of the two water width of plate (i.e., Ax = b  Lw)
streams for each run was adjusted to keep the Reynolds number Channel Dh is defined as four times ratio of minimum flow area to
the same on both sides of the heat exchanger. hydraulic 2bLw
wetted perimeter, Dh ¼ ðbþL w uÞ
([26]). Since bLw, Dh is
The hot water was circulated through the heat exchanger using diameter, Dh usually taken to be 2b/u (e.g., [18])
a 2.2 kW pump. An equivalent power inverter was installed on the
pump motor to control its speed and hence the flow rate. The max-
imum speed of the pump was 1440 rpm. As shown in Fig. 1, a by-
The plate heat exchanger was configured in a single pass, U-
pass was also installed between the exchanger and the water tank
arrangement, permitting disassembly of the exchanger, without
in order to return the excess water back to the tank, if required. The
disturbing the external piping. In a U-arrangement, all inlet/exit
excess water helped to maintain well stirred hot water source at
ports for both fluid streams are on the same fixed plate side, allow-
constant temperature. Two manually controlled valves were in-
ing counter-flow mechanism for the two fluid streams. Fig. 3 shows
stalled on the discharge side of pump, one in the by-pass loop
a single pass U-arrangement, in which stream 1 represents cold
and the other in the supply pipe to achieve better flow rate control.
fluid flow while stream 2 corresponds to hot fluid circulation.
As the hot fluid side is a closed loop, water returns to the 200 l
heated tank after passing through the plate heat exchanger. Vol-
ume flow rate was measured using a 5 l graduated cylinder and a 2.3. Instrumentation
stop watch. Mass flow rate is then calculated using density of
water at the averaged temperature between the hot fluid inlet The terminal temperatures were measured by three wire Pt-100
and exit of the plate heat exchanger. The side walls of the heat ex- resistance temperature detectors (RTDs) of mineral insulated
changer, water tank and piping were well insulated with polyure- stainless steel sheathed class ‘‘A”, manufactured by TC limited of
thane foam, covered with aluminum foil, to minimize loss of heat. UK with measurement uncertainty of ±0.1 °C. These RTDs had a
Details of instrumentation used are mentioned in a later section. sheath diameter of 6 mm and length of 100 mm. The RTDs were in-
stalled at all four ports of the plate heat exchanger, in well insu-
lated pipe sections, to measure the temperatures of both fluids.
2.2. Plate heat exchanger The data logger used was a 16-channel input device with an LCD
display for data and graphic representation of the data.
A gasketted plate heat exchanger with commercial chevron Differential pressure transmitters (BCM sensors) of 0.1% full
plates was tested in this study. Important geometric characteristics scale order accuracy were installed between inlet and exit ports
of a chevron plate as defined in Ayub [22] are shown in Table 2 of the heat exchanger for both cold and hot water streams. The dif-
with parameters defined in Fig. 2. Table 3 presents the geometric ferential pressure measuring range of the transmitters was 0–
details of the chevron plates used in the present study. Chevron an- 69 kPa with 4–20 mA output. Wetted parts of the transmitters
gles, corrugation depth and corrugation pitch vary for different were made of stainless steel and the diaphragm material of Hastal-
plates. The modular design allows arrangement of the plate heat loy-C. The allowed operating temperature was 40 to +85 °C and
exchanger in the required configurations. the maximum permitted system pressure was 14,000 kPa. These

Fig. 1. Experimental setup.


T.S. Khan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 1058–1065 1061

Fig. 2. Basic geometric characteristics of chevron plate [26].

Table 3 was dependent on the heat flux required for a specific experiment.
Geometric characteristics of chevron plates tested in the present study. One of the 2 kW heaters was connected to the hot water inlet RTD
Plate width, Lw (mm) 185 through an on/off switch and a digital thermostat which was capa-
Vertical distance between centers of ports, Lv (mm) 565 ble of controlling the temperature within ±0.1 °C. The hot water in-
Port diameter, Dp (mm) 43 let temperature, set using a thermostat, was pre-selected based on
Horizontal distance between centers of ports, Lh (mm) 125
the desired value of Prandtl number. The hot water flow rate was
Corrugation depth or mean channel spacing, b (mm) 2.2, 2.9 and 3.6a
Plate thickness, t (mm) 0.5 adjusted by varying the speed of the pump through the power in-
Effective area of plate, A (m2) 0.095 verter. The cold water flow rate was adjusted to desired settings by
Corrugation pitch, Pc (mm) 13.25 and 6.25b the flow control valve. The experiments were conducted in a ma-
Surface enlargement factor, u 1.117 trix of varying Reynolds number at a fixed Prandtl number. Five
a
For b = 60°/60°, 30°/60° and 30°/30° plate configurations, respectively. different Reynolds numbers were used for each Prandtl number
b
For b = 30° and 60° plates, respectively. setting. The flow rates of both fluid streams were set in such a
way that the Reynolds number was same. Effect of neglecting the
difference in hot and cold side Prandtl number on the Nusselt
differential pressure transmitters were attached to dual process in- number correlation was less than 5%.
put meters for the data display. This indicator is capable of accept-
ing two inputs and is manufactured by Red Lion of USA. The
pressure and temperature data were recorded in a personal com-
puter through the data logger. Calibration of the instruments was
done using standard procedures. The temperature measurements,
which were to be used in calculation of heat transfer coefficients,
were crucial. All RTDs were periodically calibrated against a cali-
brated RTD in a constant temperature water bath.

2.4. Experimental procedure

The variable speed water pump was switched on, in order to


start hot water circulation. The cold water circulation was then
started by opening the control valve installed in the municipal
water supply pipe. The heating of hot water side was initiated by
switching on the desired number of submerged water heaters in
the hot water tank. The tank was provided with eight submerged
heating elements; six of them were of 3 kW capacity each while Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of single pass U-arrangement for counter flow heat
two of them were rated at 2 kW each. The number of heaters used exchanger setup.
1062 T.S. Khan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 1058–1065

Sufficient time was given to the system to achieve steady state hDh
Nu ¼ ð8Þ
condition. The flow rates, temperatures at all inlets and exits of the k
plate heat exchanger and energy balance were monitored. The goal This process was repeated for a range of Reynolds number and a
of this experimentation was to determine the convection heat regression analysis was then conducted to develop a Nusselt num-
transfer coefficient. This was possible by assuming the heat trans- ber correlation.
fer coefficient to be same on both sides. This was ensured to a cer-
tain extent by keeping the Reynolds numbers same on both sides of
2.6. Experimental uncertainty
the heat exchanger. The mathematical calculation procedure is fur-
ther explained in the following data reduction section.
An experimental error analysis was performed according to the
procedure outlined by Moffat [27]. After accounting for errors in
2.5. Data reduction the heating and cooling water data measurements, the maximum
errors in the primary measurements of mass flow rate and temper-
The primary measurements were fluid flow rates, pressure and ature were found to be ±4% and ±2.5%, respectively. Based on these
temperature at inlet and exit of the plate heat exchanger for both errors, an uncertainty of ±8% exists in calculated values of Nu.
fluids. The International Association for the properties of water
and steam (IAPWS) software version 95 for water was used to
determine the fluid properties at bulk mean temperature, which 3. Results and discussions
is given by:
  Data were obtained for single phase flow (water to water) for
T c;i þT c;o symmetric 30°/30°, 60°/60°, and mixed 30°/60° chevron angle
T c;avg ¼ 2
  ð1Þ plates. The mixed configuration was approximated by b = 45°.
T h;i þT h;o
T h;avg ¼ 2
Experiment was carried out for Reynolds number ranging from
500 to 2500 and Prandtl number from 3.5 to 6.5. In addition to
where subscripts ‘‘c” and ‘‘h” indicate cold and hot water respec- Re and Pr, Nu also depends on the plate characteristics. Effect of
tively as shown by streams 1 and 2 in Fig. 3. Heat transfer coeffi- Re on Nu for three chevron angle configurations is shown in
cient was determined by the overall heat transfer coefficient, U, as Fig. 4. The trend suggests that Nu increases with chevron angle
follows: and increases linearly with Re.
The present corrugated plate data are significantly higher than
1 1 1 t those of a flat plate heat exchanger [26]. The heat transfer
¼ þ þ ð2Þ
U hc hh k enhancement could be attributed to increased effective area and
As mentioned above, Reynolds number was kept the same on swirl flow generated by chevron corrugated channels. This in-
both sides of the plate during experiment such that the heat trans- creased effective area is represented by area enlargement factor,
fer coefficient both sides is assumed to be same i.e., hc = hh = h; u. The area enlargement factor for the plates used in this study is
therefore, Eq. (2) can be written as: 1.117, as provided by the manufacturer. At a given Re, the Nu in-
  creases four to nine times compared to flat plate at various chevron
1 1 1 t angles. This suggests that enhanced heat transfer of a corrugated
¼  ð3Þ
h 2 U k plate heat exchanger is primarily attributed to the greater turbu-
lence level rather than surface area enlargement. Such result is in
where the overall heat transfer coefficient, U, is determined as agreement with previous studies reported by Heavner et al. [18]
follows: and Muley and Manglik [19].
Q avg The experimental Nusselt number data of the present investiga-
U¼ ð4Þ tion is also compared with a number of reported studies. Fig. 5
ADT LMTD
shows comparison of present data with some correlations reported
where ‘‘A” is the effective heat transfer surface area and DTLMTD is in the literature. In the comparison only extreme estimated values,
the log-mean temperature difference for counter flow arrangement, using Nu correlations (Chisholm and Wanniarachchi [17], on
given by:
8 9
<ðT  T Þ  ðT  T Þ=
h;i c;o h;o c;i
DT LMTD ¼ h i ð5Þ
: ðT T Þ
ln h;i c;o ;
ðT h;o T c;i Þ

The heat transfer rates from the hot and cold fluids can be
determined by energy balance as shown below:

_ h cp;h DT h
Qh ¼ m ð6Þ

_ c cp;c DT c
Qc ¼ m ð7Þ

where DT is the difference in fluid temperature between inlet and


outlet conditions.
Theoretically, these two rates should be equal. However, the
measured heat transfer rates for the cold and hot fluids had a dif-
ference of less than ±3% for 90% of the experimental data and only
4% of the data had 5–7% difference. Therefore, in Eq. (4), the Qavg is
taken to be the average value of hot and cold fluid heat transfer.
Using Eqs. (3) and (4), the heat transfer coefficient was evaluated.
The experimental Nusselt number is then determined as: Fig. 4. Variation of Nu with Re for different plate configurations.
T.S. Khan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 1058–1065 1063

correlation which under predicts the b = 60° plate data, is in fair


agreement at low Reynolds number. Kumar [30] used various
chevron angle plates with water and his correlation, which also in-
cludes variable viscosity effects, shows a trend similar to that of
Heavner et al. [18]. For b = 30°, the present data are in good agree-
ment with experimental results of Thonon [28], Bond [31] and Ma-
slov and Kovalenko [32].
The discrepancy between present data and other studies
[12,33,34] may also be attributed to the difference in plate geom-
etry other than chevron angle, such as surface enlargement factor,
profile shape and corrugation depth.

3.1. Heat transfer empirical correlation

Generally, for single phase heat transfer, Nu is represented by


an empirical expression of the form:
Nu ¼ CRem Prn ð9Þ
where C, m, and n are independent of the nature of fluid used. The
above expression can usually be further extended to account for the
Fig. 5. Comparison of experimental Nusselt number data with other reported
studies.
variable viscosity effect. Thermodynamic properties were evaluated
at averaged (mean) temperatures between inlet and exit of the
plate heat exchanger. Dynamic viscosity at wall conditions is deter-
mined at the average of mean hot and cold stream temperatures gi-
higher side and Okada et al. [12] on lower side) are plotted. All ven as:
other reported works (i.e., Longo and Gasparella [15], Heavner  
et al. [18], Thonon [28], Talik et al. [23,24], Muley and Manglik T h;avg þ T c;avg
Tw ¼ ð10Þ
[19] and Rosenblad and Kullendorff [13]) are within the range of 2
the extreme cases mentioned above. Linear regression analysis of experimental data provides the
For a comparison of experimental data with published data, it is coefficient, C and m, for each chevron plate. The Prandtl number
important to ensure that all variables that affect heat transfer char- exponent reported by [12,15,17,19,23,24] ranges between 0.33
acteristics in corrugated plate heat exchangers are taken into ac- and 0.4. In the present correlations it is selected to be 0.35. How-
count. Some of these variables are geometric parameters, such as, ever, for better quantification of this exponent extended data are
chevron angle, hydraulic/equivalent diameter, area enlargement required for a few additional Prandtl number levels. Similarly,
factor, and other factors such as corrugation depth, flow condi- the classical Seider and Tate [35], exponent of 0.14 for the viscosity
tions, experimental procedures, and symmetry/mixed plate config- ratio correction factor has been used in the present correlations.
urations, etc. It is noted that in most of the published works, some Using values of these coefficients and exponents, experimental
of the necessary information has not been mentioned. In order to data could be represented by the following correlations. The Re
facilitate the comparison, available parametric data from previous exponent, m, is the slope of the experimental data shown in
studies and present work are tabulated in Table 1. Fig. 5, and C is the constant in the equation of a straight line.
Longo and Gasparella [15] used 65° plates in their study and re-  0:14
ported Nu correlation for the single phase experiments, using l
Nu ¼ 0:1449Re0:8414 Pr0:35 b ¼ 60 =60 ð11Þ
water as working fluid. Their experimental results are in a fairly lw
good agreement with present experimental data for 60° plates.
 0:14
Muley and Manglik [19] proposed a correlation to predict the heat l
transfer characteristics for area enlargement factor range of 1–1.5. Nu ¼ 0:1437Re0:7810 Pr0:35 b ¼ 30 =60 ð12Þ
lw
The values of Nusselt number estimated using correlation devel-
oped by Muley and Manglik [19] are found be in good agreement  0:14
l
with Okada et al. [12]. However, their correlations when used with Nu ¼ 0:1368Re0:7424 Pr0:35 b ¼ 30 =30 ð13Þ
u = 1.117 under estimate the present data. Hessami [29] also re-
lw
ported that the correlation developed by Muley and Manglik [19] Values of C and m, obtained from Fig. 5 are comparable to re-
under estimates his experimental data. Longo and Gasparella sults reported by Okada et al. [12], Muley and Manglik [19] and Ta-
[15] did not mention the area enlargement factor for their investi- lik et al. [23,24]. Estimated values of Nu using the correlations
gations. Talik et al. [23,24] carried out heat transfer study on plate shown in Eqs. (11)–(13) are compared with the experimental data
heat exchanger with corrugated plates of chevron angle 60°. They and are shown in Fig. 6. These correlations represent experimental
used water/glycol solution as working fluid with Reynolds number data within an error band of ±0.3%.
ranging from 10 to 720 and 70 < Pr < 450. Although their Prandtl
number range is quite different from our test conditions, results 3.2. Nu correlation as a function of Re, Pr and b
are in fairly good agreement with the present study.
Chisholm and Wanniarachchi [17] correlation shows qualita- An attempt has been made to report a simplified functional
tively, similar trend, however, over predicts the present experi- form Nu correlation as a function of Reynolds number, Prandtl
mental data. Experimental results from [13,18,23–25] are in fair number and chevron angle. The ranges of Re and Pr used in present
agreement at low Reynolds number, Re < 1000, but are on the experimental study are 500 < Re < 2500 and 3.5 < Pr < 6.5 using
lower side compared to the present data as Reynolds number plates of chevron angle of 30–60° which covers almost complete
increases beyond 1000. Similar trends are found for mixed plate range of commercially available chevron plates being used in the
configuration, b = 30°/60°, experimental data. Heavner et al. [18], industry. The coefficient, C, and exponent, m, being different for
1064 T.S. Khan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 1058–1065

chevron angles, corrugation depths and configurations under tur-


bulent flow conditions. Reynolds number is varied from about
500–2500. Nusselt number is found to increase with increasing
Reynolds number and chevron angle. Based on the experimental
data, a simplified Nusselt number correlation incorporating effects
of Reynolds number, Prandtl number, viscosity variation and chev-
ron angle has been proposed. This correlation represents experi-
mental data to within ±2%, and ±1.8% error for chevron angles
30° and 60° respectively and ±4% for the mixed configuration of
plates. The presented correlation is valid for 500 < Re < 2500 and
3.5 < Pr < 6.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support pro-


vided by American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-Condi-
tioning Engineers (ASHRAE) for this work under 1352-RP. Also
thanks are due to Isotherm, Inc., USA for donating the plate heat
Fig. 6. Comparison of experimental Nusselt number data for the three plate
exchanger with plates and Thermowave GmbH, Germany for addi-
configurations with respective Nusselt number correlations.
tional plates and gaskets.

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