Shell and tube heat exchange comparison with gravitational water vortex flow configuration

As a recent addition to the heat exchanger family, gravitational water vortex heat exchangers may be considered a potential alternative to shell-and-tube heat exchangers in the process industry. Their shared reliance on the turbulent fluid flow for heat transfer and comparable sizes indicates the need to compare the two thermal systems in terms of input energy requirement, heat exchange effectiveness, temperature distribution, log-mean temperature difference and overall heat transfer coefficient. The present study reports an experimental comparison of the performance of a shell-and-tube heat exchanger with a gravitational water vortex heat exchanger for the same heat exchange area, mass flowrates and reference temperatures. The validation of the experiments is supported by the analytical results for both heat exchangers. The experimental findings highlight the importance of the presence of air core in the gravitational water vortex heat exchanger, which performs 40 % better than in the absence of air core. Moreover, the same air core provides support in outperforming the shell-and-tube configuration by a margin of 22 % and 24 % more heat transfer rate for the same hot-side inlet temperatures of 313 K and 323 K, respectively. The study concludes that the gravitational water vortex heat exchanger performs better than the shell-and-tube heat exchanger at high inlet flow rates, whereas the latter is more effective in terms of log-mean temperature difference with better heat loss counter measures.