Research on the development of convection empirical correlation for fluid flow through a tube annulus by support of cfd simulation

The convection empirical correlation is a key concept in thermal engineering. To help students understand this concept, the authors used the ANSYS Fluent simulation tool (student version) to simulate a double-tube system with 100 input data points in the following ranges: Reynolds number Ref ∈ [10000; 18300], Prandtl number Prf ∈ [3.4; 8.9], and D/d2 ∈ [2.00; 3.88]. The output data includes the temperature of the flows at the outlets and the temperature of the wall, as well as experimental process data. The authors processed the simulation results and successfully derived the empirical correlation to determine the convection coefficient for forced convection turbulent flow through a tube annulus. When compared to some commonly used formulas - Mikheev, Petukhov, and Gnielinski formulas - the simulation errors fall within an acceptable range. Notably, for the Petukhov and Gnielinski formulas, the error is approximately 10%.