Convection heat transfer and pressure drop is investigated experimentally, for the flow of dilute polymer solutions (polyacrylamide) inside multi-channels flat tube and compared with water. An experimental apparatus equipped with the required measuring devices is designed and constructed to assess the effects of the operating parameters on convection heat transfer and pressure drop. The flat Aluminum multi-channels extruded tube composed of 22 parallel rectangular mini-channels (3.6 mm x 3.85 mm) with hydraulic diameter of 3.72 mm. Different polymer concentrations are considered; 10, 20, 50 and 100 ppm. This work covers a range of Reynolds number from 300 to 1200 and heat flux from 15 to 41kW/m2. The experimental measurements for flow rate, temperature, pressure, and pressure drop are taken to perform the required analysis. Therefore, the average value of convection heat transfer coefficient and friction factor for different operating parameters are computed.
The obtained experimental results show that, the laminar-turbulent transition occurs in the range of Re=1100-2000. Pressure drop and in turn friction factor takes higher values for laminar flow of polymer solutions compared with water. Friction factor decreases with increasing Reynolds number for both polymer solutions and water flow inside the flat tube. Surface temperature of flat tube decreases with increasing Reynolds number for both polymer solutions and water. Accordingly, convection heat transfer coefficient and in tum Nusselt number are increased. When using polymer solutions, the surface temperature of flat tube increases compared with water. Therefore, Nusselt number is decreased. The reduction value in Nu increases with increasing concentration of polymer solution. The average value for this reduction in Nu was about 15%. An empirical correlation for Nusselt number is obtained in the range of the studied operating parameters. Comparison between the obtained experimental results with the previous data is done and gives the same trend.