Heat Transfer and Flow Characteristics of Water Flow with Air Injection in Polyethylene Tube Placed over Metal Rods: Influence of Pitch Length and Tube Width

A polyethylene tube can be used as a heat exchanger for a low-running-cost temperature control system. In this system, the flow of temperature-controlled water in the tube is used as the heat source, and the tube is placed on the ceiling of a temperature-controlled space using a metal net. Owing to this structure, the tube is deformed by its weight. This deformation has a significant influence on heat transfer and flow characteristics. Therefore, an air injection method, in which air and water are injected simultaneously into the tube, is developed for preventing the deformation of the tube. In this study, bedding metal rods were used instead of a metal net. The influence of the pitch length of the metal rods (5 - 15 cm) and the width of the polyethylene tube 15, 20, 25, 30, and 35 cm was examined experimentally. The length of the polyethylene tube was 178 cm. The air flow rate was 9.5 × 10-5 m3/s. The water flow rates were 60, 80, 100, 120, and 140 mL/min. Results show that the thermal response improved because of air injection. In particular, the temperature at steady state increased, and steady state was attained approximately 1.2 - 3 times faster with air injection than without air injection. The optimum pitch length of the metal rods and the range of the optimum width of the polyethylene tube were 8 cm and 20 - 25 cm, respectively, with and without air injection.