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Title: Electrostatic enhancement of heat transfer in gas-to-gas heat exchangers. Final report, June 1987-March 1991

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5819646

Basic study of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) enhancement of heat transfer in heat exchangers has been the subject of an experimental investigation in the project. The authors efforts over the three-year project time period can be categorized into three consecutive phases. In phase I, EHD heat transfer enhancements and pressure drop characteristics for conventional pipe flows as a function of electric field potential, field polarity and number of electrodes (single or double configurations), and flow regime (Reynolds number ranging from fully laminar to fully turbulent conditions) were studied. Study of heat transfer enhancements and pressure drop characteristics in a shell-and-tube, gas-to-gas heat exchanger were performed in Phase II of the project. To address the applicability of EHD technique under operating conditions of gas-fired equipment, the role of various working fluid properties were studied in Phase III of the project. Specifically, effects of working fluid humidity, temperature, pressure, and impurity level on magnitude and nature of the EHD heat transfer enhancements were studied. A maximum of 322% heat transfer enhancement with only 112% increase in pressure drops was achieved under simultaneous excitation of the tube and shell sides of the heat exchanger in the study. With optimized electric and flow field parameters much higher enhancements can be expected.

Research Organization:
Michigan Technological Univ., Houghton, MI (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
OSTI ID:
5819646
Report Number(s):
PB-92-123744/XAB; CNN: GRI-5087-260-1528
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Sponsored by Gas Research Inst., Chicago, IL
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English