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The effects of surface roughness on the fully developed heat transfer characteristics of laminar and transitional flow through horizontal circular tubes

Dissertation (MEng (Mechanical Engineering)--University of Pretoria, 2022.

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Other Authors: Everts, Marilize
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: University of Pretoria 2022
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access_status_str Open Access
author2 Everts, Marilize
author_browse Everts, Marilize
author_facet Everts, Marilize
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv © 2022 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.
description Dissertation (MEng (Mechanical Engineering)--University of Pretoria, 2022.
format Thesis
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institution University of Pretoria (South Africa)
language English
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:39:28.478Z
license_str Other — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
publishDate 2022
publishDateRange 2022
publishDateSort 2022
publisher University of Pretoria
publisherStr University of Pretoria
record_format dspace
source_str UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
spelling oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/87066 The effects of surface roughness on the fully developed heat transfer characteristics of laminar and transitional flow through horizontal circular tubes Everts, Marilize u14103282@tuks.co.za Meyer, Josua P. Robbertse, Pascal Surface roughness Heat transfer Transition Tube Fully developed UCTD Dissertation (MEng (Mechanical Engineering)--University of Pretoria, 2022. Heat exchangers are essential components in heating and cooling processes that are used in a variety of commercial and industrial applications. The accurate design and development of these heat exchangers rely on correlations determined from experimental work that account for the various conditions that may affect the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics. This is ever more important as a push towards cleaner and more sustainable processes depend on effective heat exchangers which optimize heat transfer while minimizing pressure drop. Although the effect of surface roughness on friction factors has been widely studied, little work has been done focussing on the effect of surface roughness on heat transfer in macro-tubes, particularly in the laminar and transitional flow regimes. The transitional flow regime is an area of interest because an optimum between high heat transfer and low pressure drop is often found near or in the transitional flow regime, which may be further leveraged by the effects of the surface roughness. This study, therefore, experimentally investigated the effects of surface roughness on simultaneous heat transfer and pressure drop on laminar and transitional flow through horizontal, circular macro-tubes subjected to a uniform heat flux. A smooth (ε/D ≈ 0) 5.45 m long test section with an internal diameter of 5.14 mm was used for validation and subsequently roughened with a sand blasting technique to attain two low relative surface roughnesses of ε/D = 0.0003 and ε/D = 0.0006. Water was used as the test fluid and the experiments were performed at four heat fluxes of 0, 1, 2 and 3 kW/m2, over a Reynolds number range from 500 to 9 800. In the laminar flow regime, the surface roughness disturbed the development of the thermal boundary layers for mixed convection, increasing the thermal entrance lengths, which therefore increased the Nusselt numbers. The low relative surface roughnesses also delayed the critical Reynolds numbers at which transition started. This was initially in contradiction with literature, however, a comparison of the critical Reynolds numbers with literature showed that the relative surface roughnesses attained in this study were at least an order of magnitude or lower than previously investigated. The low relative surface roughnesses dampened the fluctuations in the flow and the disturbance caused by the square-edged inlet geometry, which delayed the onset of the transitional flow regime. Furthermore, it was proposed that three distinct regions can be found when considering the critical Reynolds numbers as a function of the relative surface roughnesses: at low relative surface roughnesses in the Dampening region, the critical Reynolds numbers increase with increasing roughnesses, while at moderate relative surface roughnesses in the Enhancing region and at large relative surface roughnesses in the Saturating region, the critical Reynolds numbers decrease with increasing roughnesses. The key differences are that the effects of secondary flow in the Enhancing region begin to fall off and become insignificant in the Saturating region, and no distinctive transitional flow regime occurs in the Saturating region. Finally, a simultaneous analysis of the heat transfer and pressure drop showed that, when compared to smooth tubes, low relative roughness improved the performance in the laminar flow regime where the heat transfer coefficients increased more than the friction factors. Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering MEng (Mechanical Engineering) Unrestricted 2022-09-05T09:17:36Z 2022-09-05T09:17:36Z 2022-09-07 2022-05-31 Dissertation Robbertse, P 2022, The effects of surface roughness on the fully developed heat transfer characteristics of laminar and transitional flow through horizontal circular tubes, Master of Engineering Dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/87066 * en © 2022 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria
spellingShingle Surface roughness
Heat transfer
Transition
Tube
Fully developed
UCTD
The effects of surface roughness on the fully developed heat transfer characteristics of laminar and transitional flow through horizontal circular tubes
title The effects of surface roughness on the fully developed heat transfer characteristics of laminar and transitional flow through horizontal circular tubes
title_full The effects of surface roughness on the fully developed heat transfer characteristics of laminar and transitional flow through horizontal circular tubes
title_fullStr The effects of surface roughness on the fully developed heat transfer characteristics of laminar and transitional flow through horizontal circular tubes
title_full_unstemmed The effects of surface roughness on the fully developed heat transfer characteristics of laminar and transitional flow through horizontal circular tubes
title_short The effects of surface roughness on the fully developed heat transfer characteristics of laminar and transitional flow through horizontal circular tubes
title_sort effects of surface roughness on the fully developed heat transfer characteristics of laminar and transitional flow through horizontal circular tubes
topic Surface roughness
Heat transfer
Transition
Tube
Fully developed
UCTD
url https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/87066