Performance enhancement of air coolers using the flow turbulator

Applications of heat transfer enhancement by tube inserts (turbulators) have been used in many industries such as power plants, refineries and petrochemicals plants. The main objective is typically viewed primarily as a means to improve and to intensify the thermal performance, size and capital cost reduction of heat exchangers and air coolers. This article introduces a procedure for considering of heat transfer enhancement in a typical air cooler using different turbulators such as Wire coils, Twisted tape and Wire matrixes. Due to increase of the effective surface area, increase of eddies and back mixing in fluid and consequently increase of heat transfer rate, the required heat transfer area is reduced significantly. The case study shows application of wire coil inserts is more effective than others and goes beyond the size reduction. The comparison is revealed that about 20 percent improvement in total cost for 10 years operation of the existing air cooler equipped with the turbulator.