6. Conclusions
A set of corrugated tubes was analyzed in terms of heat transfer
enhancement, friction factor characteristics and thermal performance.
One smooth tube and 18 helically corrugated tubes have
been investigated experimentally. The influence of the corrugation
angle u, corrugation height e and corrugation pitch p have been
examined. The key findings are:
1. The highest heat transfer enhancement was obtained by tube
01, which was a single-start corrugated tube with e=di ¼
0:040; p=di ¼ 0:517 and / ¼ 3:09 103
.
2. Obviously for helically corrugated tubes, there is a similar optimal
range of p=e as described earlier by Webb et al. [17,18] for
transverse ribs. However, an additional influence of the corrugation
angle is presumed. To clarify this, additional measurements
are necessary.
3. If the number of corrugation starts is varied, the severity index
as a unique geometry parameter is not sufficient to describe the
heat transfer and friction characteristic. Thus, the correlations
used are power law functions of e=di; p=di;u and Re, where p
is a function of the number of corrugation starts.
4. For further optimization purposes, the newly derived correlations
(15) and (19) should be used together with Eq. (1). As a
constraint, the number of corrugation starts has to be set as
an integer value. Due to mechanical forces during the manufacturing
process, the maximum producible corrugation height
depends on the corrugation pitch, the tube diameter and wall
thickness and the tube material. Such information should be
used as constraint, to avoid apparent optimal results, which
can not be produced. To avoid the problem of exceeding the saturation
height of the corrugation, the constraint
e=di < 0:056 3:4 103 exp p=di 0:56
0:132 ð22Þ
sh