Heat Transfer in Triple-Concentric-Pipe Heat Exchanger: With/Without Corrugations

The present work involves the investigations related to heat transfer between three fluids which are at three different temperatures. For investigation process, an innovative triple-concentric-pipe heat exchanger is adopted. The heat exchanger is designed in the laboratory. Normal tap water, water at an elevated temperature and water below the room temperature are chosen to be the three fluids of interest. N-H-C and C-H-N flow configurations are considered for the experimentation. Different flow configurations (with/without corrugation on the outer surface of the middle pipe) are also considered in the investigation. For the different flow arrangements, the temperature distribution pertaining to the different fluids is measured experimentally. This is presented separately for different flow arrangements. Effective heat transfer is calculated for each of the arrangements and compared. It is evident that heat exchanger effectiveness is better in case of corrugated surface and also the N-H-C arrangement of heat exchanger is seen to be more effective in comparison with the C-H-N arrangement.