Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Flow and Heat Transfer in a Gas-Liquid Thermosyphon Heat Exchanger in a Pilot Plant

A numerical and experimental investigation of flow and heat transfer in a gas- liquid Thermosyphon Heat Exchanger "THE" with built in heat pipes and aluminum plate fins for moderate Reynolds numbers has been carried out. It's module is composed of 6 rows and 15 columns copper pipes with aluminum plate fins with dimensions of 130cm height, 47cm width and  20cm depth. The tubes have been filled with water with filling ratios of 30%, 50% and 70%. The density and thickness of fins are 300 fin/m and 0.4mm, respectively. The configuration of tubes is in-line with 30mm pitch. This paper presents the distribution of temperature and thermal performance of "THE" by using CFD modeling. A good comparison of the present CFD modeling results for the modeling thermosyphon heat exchanger with experimental results of hydrodynamic and thermal behavior is achieved.