ISSN 0040-6015, Thermal Engineering, 2008, Vol. 55, No. 3, pp. 196–200. © Pleiades Publishing, Inc., 2008.

Original Russian Text © Yu.M. Brodov, K.E. Aronson, A.Yu. Ryabchikov, G.A. Lokalov, 2008, published in Teploenergetika.

An Experimental Investigation of Heat Transfer for Viscous

Liquid Flowing over Bundles of Smooth and Profiled Tubes
as Applied to Turbine Unit Oil Coolers
Yu. M. Brodov, K. E. Aronson, A. Yu. Ryabchikov, and G. A. Lokalov
Ural State Technical University–Ural Polytechnic Institute (UGTU-UPI), ul. Mira 19, Yekaterinburg, 620002 Russia

Abstract—Specific features pertinent to the flow of oil and heat transfer in bundles of smooth and profiled
twisted tubes are investigated. The effect of neighboring tubes in a bundle on the heat transfer on a working tube
is considered. Dependences for estimating drag and heat transfer in bundles of profiled twisted tubes are
obtained.
DOI: 10.1134/S0040601508030038

The heat transfer during the flow of viscous liquid in
the bundles with smooth tubes was considered in many
papers [ 1–6]. The dependences obtained from these
studies make it possible to calculate and design efficient
apparatuses for power-generating machines [1, 2, 5, 7,
and 8]. Among the oil coolers made for steam-turbine
units (STUs) are those of the MB series (MB-40-60,
MB-63-90, MB-90-135, and MB-190-250), the MO
series (MO-10 and MO-16), and others. Tubes of non-
ferrous alloys have been used in these oil coolers until
recently, primarily due to economic considerations.
However, as was shown in [9], STU oil coolers the
tubes of which are made of nonferrous alloys, espe-
cially of L68 brass, feature a rather high failure rate. In
[9, 10] it is pointed out that oil coolers with tubes made
of stainless steel are, on the contrary, almost free from
failures. In recent years, oil coolers with tubes made of
stainless steel 08Kh18N10T have received wide use
owing to the fact that this material shows high resis-
tance to corrosion in media containing no or few chlo-
rides. For example, the number of only those oil coolers
manufactured on the basis of our developments in dif-
ferent standard sizes and supplied to thermal power sta-
tions equipped with 6- to 800-MW turbines runs to
more than 200 units [11−13].
The use of stainless tubes the material of which has a
generated the need to carry out a set of the experimental
investigations of thermal and hydraulic processes in
tube bundles with smooth and profiled tubes as applied
to the oil coolers of STUs.
Hydrodynamics and heat transfer associated with a
stream of turbine oil flowing over tube bundles trans-
versely to their axes were studied on a specially con-
structed experimental setup using the method of local
thermal modeling with a cooled working tube [15]. In
this case, the temperature of liquid approaching the
working tube corresponds to the temperature of flow
before the bundle. The parameters of oil used for the
experimental study were selected in accordance with
the ranges in which they vary in the oil coolers of tur-
bine units at thermal power stations under different
conditions of their operation [5].
The most important component of the experimental
setup is its working module. This module is a 700-mm-
long duct with a rectangular cross section 90 mm in
width and 95 mm in height. A section of hydrodynamic
stabilization is placed upstream of the working module.
(a) (b)
δ
s

relatively low heat conductivity factor λst = 16 W/(m2 K) wo 1 0° 180° 5 wo

t = zs

makes it possible to improve the reliability of heat- Series 3 and 4 Series 3'
h
transfer apparatuses, but at the same time it makes them 45° 45°
less efficient. A need therefore arises to use tubes 2 90° 4
enhancing heat transfer, in particular, profiled twisted 3
tubes (PTTs) that are widely used in the heat-transfer d
apparatuses of STUs [10, 12], Fig. 1a. However, our
analysis has shown that the scope of the available data Fig. 1. Profiled twisted tube (a) and orientation in oil flow
on enhancement of heat transfer under the conditions in of the working PTT’s cross section in which measurements
which viscous liquids flow over the tube bundles of heat are carried out (b). h—groove depth, s—pitch between
neighboring grooves, z—number of profiling entries,
exchangers is extremely small [4, 14] and that almost δ—wall thickness, d—tube diameter, and (1)–(5)—thermo-
no data are available for PTTs. These circumstances couples.

196
 AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF HEAT TRANSFER
Nu*
12 2 20
1 2
8
4
50 150 250 350 450 Reo
Fig. 2. Heat transfer in a bundle of smooth tubes. (1) Data
of [3] for 40 < Rel < 1000, (2) data of [6] for 200 < Rel <
100000, and
experimental data.
In order to reduce loss of heat into the environment, the
module and the section of hydrodynamic stabilization
are covered from the outside with heat insulating mate-
rial. An 11-row test bundle of vertical tubes is installed
in the module. The working tube, which is essentially a
water calorimeter, is placed in the middle of the bun-
dle’s fifth row (in the direction of oil flow). The 95-mm-
high working part of the calorimetric tube is made of a
3-mm-thick copper tube with a diameter of 16 mm (the
material is copper M1). The temperature of the calori-
metric tube surface is taken to be equal to the arithmetic
mean of the readings from five thermocouples embed-
ded in the tube wall in the mid-height part of the tube
and oriented at angles ϕ = 0–180° with respect to the
direction of incident flow (Fig. 1b). The thermocouple
wires insulated from the tube metal are laid in 1.0-mm-
deep and 0.5-mm-wide grooves. The groove is covered
on the top with a Π-shaped copper strip, after which the
tube surface is ground. The heating of water in the cal-
orimetric tube is determined using a differential ther-
mocouple, the thermal emf of thermocouples is mea-
sured by means of a differential microvoltmeter, and
the drag of the tube bundle is determined from the dif-
ference of static pressures measured upstream and
downstream of the tube bundle using a differential pres-
sure gage connected to calibrated holes in the walls of
the working module. The flowrate of water through the
working tube and oil flowrate are measured using the
volumetric method. The calculated relative rms error
with which the heat-transfer coefficient on the oil side
is determined is equal to ±6%.
The experimental setup was adjusted and the mea-
surement procedure verified under conditions in which
oil flowed over a bundle of smooth tubes, since well-
known empirical dependences are available for this
case [1–6 and 8].
Figure 2 shows a comparison, in the coordinates
Nu* = f(Reo), between the results we obtained on the
experimental setup and the data of other researchers
[3, 4]. The thermal-physical complex Nu* is defined as
Nu* = Nu o / [ Pr o ( Pr l /Pr w ) o ],
0.36 0.25
(1)
THERMAL ENGINEERING Vol. 55 No. 3 2008
197
Eu
30
10 3
1
0
50 150 250 350 450 Reo
Fig. 3. Drag of the working tube bundle. (1) Data of [8],
(2) and (3) approximation of the experimental data for the
bundle of smooth tubes and the bundle with PTT; experi-
mental data:
series 1 (see table),  series 2,  series 3, and
 series 4.
where Num and Prm are the Nusselt and Prandtl num-
bers for oil, (Prl/Prw)o is the ratio of the Prandtl numbers
for oil at the temperatures of incident flow and for the
tube wall, and Reo is the Reynolds number for oil cal-
culated from the characteristic velocity in the narrow
cross-section of the tube bundle. The working tube’s
diameter is used in the Nuo and Reo numbers as the
characteristic dimension.
It can be seen from Fig. 2 that the value by which the
experimental data obtained for oil flowing over a bun-
dle of smooth tubes differ from the results of other
researchers is not more than 10%. This allowed us to
analyze the data on profiled tubes using the dependence
of the form Nu* = f(Reo) obtained by approximating the
experimental data for the bundle of smooth tubes using
the method of least squares.
Figure 3 shows how the drag of the bundle of
smooth tubes varies in a transverse flow of oil in the
coordinates
Eu = f ( Re o ), (2)
where Eu = ρo w o /2 is the Euler number, ρo is the den-
2
sity of oil, and wo is the velocity of oil in the narrow sec-
tion of the tube bundle.
The experimental values of drag for the case when
oil flows transversely over the bundle of smooth tubes
are somewhat higher than the values calculated for the
11-row tube bundle [8], which, in our opinion, can be
attributed to the influence of the inlet and outlet rows of
the working tube bundle, the drag of which is higher
than that of the internal tube rows [4]. In order to per-
form further analysis of results, the experimental data
were subjected to approximation (curve 2 in Fig. 3).
The enhancement of heat transfer was investigated
on PTTs (see Fig. 1a) the profiling parameters of which
had the following values: s = 8 mm, h = 0.5 mm, and
z = 3 [10, 11]. Since no data are available in the literature
regarding the effect the profiling of tubes has on drag and
heat transfer when viscous liquid (oil) flows transversely
over the bundles of PTTs, an extended task was set forth
198 BRODOV et al.
Alternative versions of installing PTTs and smooth tubes in
a bundle
Series No. Working tube Bundle tubes
1 Smooth Smooth
2 Smooth PTT
3 PTT Smooth
4 PTT PTT
in our investigations to estimate the effect due to profil-
ing of both the working tube surface and that of neigh-
boring tubes in the bundle. Four series of experiments
were carried out for different combinations of placing
PTTs in the bundle (see table and Fig. 4).
We see that the transfer of heat on the smooth work-
ing tube surrounded by profiled tubes (series 2) is 40%
higher than it is in the bundle consisting of only smooth
tubes (series 1). The transfer of heat on the working
PTT (series 3 and 4) is 57–70% higher than it is on the
smooth tube. Note that the effect due to the profiling of
neighboring tubes is insignificant: the experimental
data for series 3 and 4 coincided with one another.
It should be pointed out that the effect the thermo-
physical properties of oil have on heat transfer is the
same for the case when oil flows over smooth and pro-
filed tubes, a fact seen from the a (up to 10%) error with
which the experimental data were approximated for all
series of tests.
Figure 5 shows the results from processing of exper-
imental data in the form of the ratio Nu/NUsm for series
1–4, where Nusm are the data from the first series of
tests on the bundle consisting of only smooth tubes.
Curve 1 shows the enhancement of heat transfer in test
series 2 (a smooth tube in a PTT bundle). We see that
the placement of PTTs in the tube bundle around the
smooth working tube caused the heat transfer coeffi-
cient to increase by 40% in the entire variation range of
the Reo number. Such an increase in the heat-transfer
coefficient can be attributed to the effect of distur-
bances occurring in oil current as it flows over the bun-
Nu*
20
3 1.5
16 2 1
12
1 50
8
4
50 150 250 350 450 Reo
Fig. 4. Heat transfer in the tube bundle. Approximation of
experimental data: (1) series 1, (2) series 2, (3) series 3 and
4; experimental data: the notation is the same as in Fig. 3.
dle tubes neighboring to the working one. At Pr
1
(which is characteristic of viscous liquids such as tur-
bine oil), the thickness of the hydrodynamic boundary
layer that emerges on the working tube surface is much
larger than that of the thermal boundary layer [4]. The
results from an assessment of the hydrodynamic
boundary layer according to [4] show that, given the oil
flow velocity in the narrow section of a tube bundle
wo ≈ 0.3 m/s and oil temperature to = 50°C, the bound-
ary layers of two neighboring tubes merge beginning
from ϕ ≈ 65–70° referred from the tube end-face point.
Curve 2 in Fig. 5 corresponds to the enhancement of
heat transfer for test series 3 (a PTT in a smooth-tube
bundle) and 4 (a PTT in a bundle of PTTs). The
increase in heat transfer on the working PTT is equal to
57–70%; the larger the Reo number, the smaller the
increase. The value by which heat transfer is enhanced
when the oil current flows over the PTT under study can
be estimated from the following dependence, which
was obtained by approximating the experimental data
–0.036
Nu pr /Nu sm = 1.95Re o . (2)
In our opinion, if a PTT is used as the working tube,
the profiling of its surface causes the distribution of
temperatures in the thermal boundary layer to alter,
thus enhancing heat transfer. In addition to such a direct
effect on the thermal boundary layer, the profiling of
the tube causes the oil flow velocity to change as a
result of the incident flow velocity summing vectorially
with that of the flow generated due to the inclined
groove of the PTT profile, a circumstance that also
results in enhancement of heat transfer.
Investigations have shown that profiling of the
working tube itself is the determining factor for
enhancement of heat transfer when oil flows trans-
versely over a PTT. The type of surrounding tubes
(smooth ones or PTTs) is not of significant importance;
this is confirmed by the data in Fig. 4, in which curve 3
is an approximation of the experimental data obtained
in test series 3 and 4.
Another task of the investigation was to determine
more exactly the mechanism through which the profil-
Nu/Nusm
2
1.4
150 250 350 450 Reo
Fig. 5. Relative Nusselt number vs. the Reo number in case
of stream flowing transversely over the bundle of smooth
and profiled tubes. (1) Ratio of data from series 2 to those
from series 1 and (2) ratio of data from series 3 and 4 to
those from series 1.
THERMAL ENGINEERING Vol. 55 No. 3 2008
 AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF HEAT TRANSFER
ing of surface influences heat transfer when oil flows
transversely over tube bundles. To this end, we consid-
ered the distribution of temperatures in the working
tube’s wall. Figure 6 shows the characteristic distribu-
tions of the relative temperature difference over the
working tube perimeter θ = (to – tϕ)/(to – t0), where to is
the temperature of oil flow and t0 and tϕ are the temper-
atures of the working tube wall at the end-face point
ϕ = 0° and at the point at the angle ϕ. We see that the
pattern in which the relative temperature difference is
distributed over the working tube perimeter in case of
the PTT differs considerably from the case of using a
smooth tube. The temperature difference gradient in the
tube wall dθ/dϕ is higher for a PTT than it is for a
smooth tube, especially when ϕ = 0–45°.
The relative temperature difference in the working
tube wall is one of the factors influencing the formation
of the thermal boundary layer when stream flows trans-
versely over the tubes. The pattern in which θ varies on
the PTT (see Fig. 6) confirms the data of [3, 4] accord-
ing to which the thermal boundary layer has smaller
thickness when stream flows over tube bundles with
artificial roughness.
The end-face point of the working PTT’s section at
which measurements were carried out in test series 3 and
4 was situated on a protrusion. In the additional series of
tests, a PTT groove was used as the end-face point with
respect to the oil flow direction (series 3'; see Fig. 1b).
The characteristic distribution of temperature difference
over the PTT perimeter is in this case close to that for a
smooth tube, but the average heat-transfer coefficient
corresponds to the data for test series 3 and 4.
The pattern in which the characteristic zones of the
PTT surface (a protrusion or groove zone) are oriented
with respect to the direction of oil flow influences the
distribution of θ over the perimeter, which is due to the
different hydrodynamic characteristics the oil flow has
near the tube surface. A more rapid pattern in which θ
varies on a PTT (series 3 and 4) as compared with that
on a smooth tube is due to the fact that θ depends con-
siderably on the thermal and physical properties of oil.
An analysis of data on the relative temperature differ-
ence for different angles ϕ shows that θ is proportional
to Reo–0.035 in the case of a smooth working tube and
also in the case of a PTT with its groove oriented oppo-
site to the flow (test series 1, 2, and 3'); if a PTT is used
as the working tube oriented so that its protrusion faces
oil flow (test series 3 and 4), θ is proportional to the
(µl/µw ) o , where µl and µw are the
–0.035 0.14
product Re o
kinematic viscosity factors of oil at the temperatures of
incident flow and tube wall. As is shown in [16], the
0.14
correction (µl/µw ) o takes into account the effect of
the thermal and physical properties of liquid when it
flows over a plate in the initial section of hydrodynamic
and thermal stabilization.
It follows from Fig. 3 that the data of test series 1
and 3 and 2 and 4 coincide with one another in a pair-
THERMAL ENGINEERING Vol. 55 No. 3 2008
199
θ 4
1.2 3
1.1
2
1.0 1
0.9
0 45 90 135 ϕ, deg
Fig. 6. Distribution of the relative temperature difference
over the working tube perimeter. (1)–(4) Numbers of test
series.
wise manner. The drag of the bundle with PTTs (test
series 2 and 4) is 3–43% higher than that of the bundle
with smooth tubes and is described by the dependence
0.155
Eu pr /Eu sm = 0.542Re o . (3)
The results from the investigations described above
show that the effect from using PTTs in oil coolers
depends mainly on the possibility to enhance heat
transfer both on the side of oil and on the side of water
[7, 10, and 11]. In the first case, the enhancement of
heat transfer is determined by the change in the hydro-
dynamics of oil flow on the profiled tube surface, and in
the second case, by the fact that ordered flow of fuel
becomes upset in the viscous sublayer due to its becom-
ing turbulized and swirled (i.e., by the flow hydrody-
namics as well) [10].
If we wish to use PTTs in oil coolers, we must take
into account the increase in the apparatus drag on the
side of water, a phenomenon that may result in a drop
of oil and water flowrates if there is no sufficient margin
for the pump head and, consequently, in an inadmissi-
ble change in the operating conditions of the process
circuit.
The obtained experimental data make it possible to
optimize the layout of oil cooler tube bundles on the
basis of a comprehensive calculation of their thermal
and hydrodynamic characteristics, as well as reliability
indicators. A procedure for such optimization is given
in [10, 11]. It was developed for oil coolers with either
smooth or profiled twisted tubes. In addition to the
well-known procedures [5, 8], we have implemented a
refined procedure for zone-wise calculation of oil cool-
ers that makes it possible to take into account changes
in the parameters of oil in different zones of the appa-
ratus identified conditionally along the flow of oil.
The accomplished investigations of hydrodynamics
and heat transfer for oil flowing over the bundles of
smooth and profiled tubes have shown the following:
(i) The extent to which heat transfer on a smooth
working tube is enhanced when the smooth tubes sur-
rounding it are replaced by PTTs is equal to 40% in the
entire range of the investigated Reo numbers (due to the
200 BRODOV et al.
active effect the flow disturbances resulting from the
profiling of bundle tubes have on the hydrodynamic
boundary layer of oil emerging on the smooth working
tube).
(ii) The transfer of heat is 57–70% higher on a PTT
than it is in a bundle of smooth tubes, and it does not
depend on the type of surrounding tubes (smooth ones
or PTTs); the degree to which heat transfer becomes
more efficient on PTTs is determined by two main fac-
tors: the change in the oil velocity owing to the velocity
component occurring due to the inclined groove of the
PTT profile and a more rapid change in the relative tem-
perature difference across the PTT and a conjectured
reduction in the thickness of the thermal boundary layer
of oil.
(iii) The analysis of the pattern in which the relative
temperature difference is distributed over the working
tube perimeter has shown that this temperature differ-
ence depends considerably on the thermophysical prop-
erties of oil in case of using PTTs when the end-face
point is on the profile protrusion.
(iv) The relative increase in the drag of a tube bundle
consisting of PTTs reaches 40% as compared with that
of the smooth-tube one (depending on the Reo number).
(v) The zonewise procedure for calculating oil cool-
ers we have refined on the basis of the above investiga-
tions makes it possible to develop optimal designs of
tube systems of efficient and reliable oil coolers for tur-
bine units with the use of PTTs made of Steel
12Kh18N10T.
(vi) The study results were used in the course of ret-
rofitting 200 series-produced oil coolers and develop-
ing a series of new oil coolers for turbines with a capac-
ity of 250–800 MW.
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THERMAL ENGINEERING Vol. 55 No. 3 2008