Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 33 (2009) 922928

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Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/etfs

Experimental investigation of plastic nned-tube heat exchangers, with

emphasis on material thermal conductivity
Lin Chen, Zhen Li *, Zeng-Yuan Guo
Department of Engineering Mechanics, Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 6 September 2008
Received in revised form 14 January 2009
Accepted 2 April 2009

Keywords:
Plastic
Finned-tube heat exchanger
Thermal conductivity

a b s t r a c t
In this paper, two modied types of polypropylene (PP) with high thermal conductivity up to 2.3 W/m K
and 16.5 W/m K are used to manufacture the nned-tube heat exchangers, which are prospected to be
used in liquid desiccant air conditioning, heat recovery, water source heat pump, sea water desalination,
etc. A third plastic heat exchanger is also manufactured with ordinary PP for validation and comparison.
Experiments are carried out to determine the thermal performance of the plastic heat exchangers. It is
found that the plastic nned-tube heat exchanger with thermal conductivity of 16.5 W/m K can achieve
overall heat transfer coefcient of 34 W/m2 K. The experimental results are compared with calculation
and they agree well with each other. Finally, the effect of material thermal conductivity on heat exchanger thermal performance is studied in detail. The results show that there is a threshold value of material
thermal conductivity. Below this value improving thermal conductivity can considerably improve the
heat exchanger performance while over this value improving thermal conductivity contributes very little
to performance enhancement. For the nned-tube heat exchanger designed in this paper, when the plastic thermal conductivity can reach over 15 W/m K, it can achieve more than 95% of the titanium heat
exchanger performance and 84% of the aluminum or copper heat exchanger performance with the same
dimension.
2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Heat exchanger is one of the basic equipment in industries such
as energy and power engineering, chemical engineering, pharmaceutical engineering, etc. They are also widely used in HVAC applications to achieve comfortable living habitation. Generally heat
exchangers are made of metals because metals are good heat conductors, i.e. they have relatively high thermal conductivities. The
most common problems causing failures in metal heat exchangers
are corrosion and fouling, especially in aggressive environment.
One prospective solution to these problems is to use polymer
materials, such as plastic, to make heat exchangers. Plastic can resist corrosion and fouling, so the fouling thermal resistance of plastic heat exchanger does not rapidly increase and it has a stable heat
transfer performance. Besides, plastic heat exchangers can be manufactured and maintained more easily compared with the metal
ones. The use of plastic heat exchangers can also help lower such
costs as transportation and installation, which consequently lowers the total investment [1,2]. Ever since the 1960s, scientists
and engineers have been studying plastic heat exchangers [3].
From then on, plastic heat exchangers have been successfully used
for heat recovery from polluted and/or corrosive uids [1,4], sea* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 62782982; fax: +86 10 62781610.
E-mail address: lizh@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (Z. Li).
0894-1777/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.expthermusci.2009.04.001

water desalination [5,6], fuel cells [7], solar water heating [8] and
many other applications [2].
Despite their merits and wide applications, plastics have one
fatal drawback of low thermal conductivity. To overcome this
drawback, many existing plastic heat exchangers adopt the tactic
of small tube/channel diameter and extraordinarily small wall
thickness in order to reduce the conductive thermal resistance.
At the same time, the surface area of per unit volume is considerably improved, which also enhances heat transfer. However, these
tactics limit the plastic heat exchangers type and structure to shelltube heat exchangers, plate heat exchangers and heat exchanger
coils [2].
This limitation is gradually fading away with the progress in
improving plastic thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity
of modied plastic can achieve up to 20 W/m K or even higher
[9,10]. This makes it possible to develop the nned-tube heat exchanger which is widely used in gasliquid heat transfer applications, such as air conditioning.
In a traditional household air conditioner, water condenses on
the evaporator and results in wetted surface. This may cause slight
corrosion and fouling. However the condenser works in severe outdoor environment where dust accumulation, atmospheric corrosion and fouling are quite common. These problems become
much more serious when using chemical detergent to maintain
the cleanness of evaporator and condenser and inhibitors are re-

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L. Chen et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 33 (2009) 922928

Nomenclature
a
Ali
Alr
Alf
Alo
A
cp
d
de
Gmax
hi
ho
K
L
_
m
Q_
r
S1, S2
Sf
T
DT
DTm

side length of square n, m

inside area per meter length, m2/m
outside area between ns per meter length, m2/m
outside n area per meter length, m2/m
outside total area per meter length, m2/m
heat exchanger surface area, m2
specic heat, kJ/kg K
tube diameter, m
equivalent diameter used in air side heat transfer coefcient calculation, m
mass velocity at minimum ow area, kg/m2 s
water side heat transfer coefcient, W/m2 K
air side heat transfer coefcient, W/m2 K
overall heat transfer coefcient, W/m2 K
tube length of each horizontal water ow path, m
mass ow rate, kg/s
heat transfer rate, W
fouling thermal resistance, m2 K/W
distance between tube rows and lines, m
surface distance within 2 ns, m
temperature, C
temperature difference, C
log mean temperature difference, C

quired [11,12]. When using plastic heat exchanger, the dust accumulation can slow down due to the low surface energy of plastics.
Also corrosion can be avoided and cheap acid can be used to wash
the heat exchangers [13].
The plastic nned-tube heat exchanger is also expected to be
used in liquid desiccant air conditioning, which is energy efcient
and can utilize low grade thermal energy such as solar energy [14].
So far, the liquid desiccant air conditioning is usually achieved in 2
steps: rst use the liquid desiccant to dehumidify the air in a packing unit and then sensibly cool the air. Actually the two steps can
be integrated, just as Khan [15,16], Yadav [17] did in their research
of the internally cooled/heated liquid desiccant air conditioner. But
the desiccants, mainly lithium bromide (LiBr) and lithium chloride
(LiCl), etc., are corrosive to metals. Only when the dehumidier/
regenerator is anti-corrosion heat exchanger that the compacted
and efcient internally cooled/heated liquid desiccant air conditioner can be put into practice. Saman and Alizadeh [18] and
Lowenstein et al. [19] had already tried the plate type plastic heat
exchanger and gained very good results. However, the plastic
nned-tube heat exchanger may hopefully be a better choice, since
it is more compacted with large heat and mass transfer area and it
can be easily connected with traditional vapor compression system
to function in the efcient hybrid mode.
In this paper, two modied types of polypropylene (PP) with
high thermal conductivity are used to manufacture the nned-tube
heat exchangers, which are prospected to be used in liquid desiccant air conditioning, heat recovery from corrosive exhaust gas,
water source heat pump, sea water desalination, etc. Also a third
plastic heat exchanger is manufactured with ordinary PP for the
purpose of validation and comparison. The thermal conductivity
of the plastic materials is obtained by the laser ash method.
Experiments are carried out to determine the heat transfer performance of the plastic heat exchangers. The experimental results are
compared with calculations. Finally, the effect of thermal conductivity of plastic on heat exchanger performance is studied in detail.
The data and results from this paper may provide some reference
for the design and use of plastic nned-tube heat exchangers.

Greek symbols
b
ratio of outside surface area to inside surface area
n thickness, m
df
g
factor ratio, function of nned-tube surface area and n
efciency
gf
n efciency
k
thermal conductivity, W/m K
l
dynamic viscosity, kg/m s
Subscripts
a
air
Al
aluminum
Cu
copper
e
experimental data (results)
i
heat exchanger inside
in
heat exchanger inlet
max
maximal value
min
minimum value
o
heat exchanger outside
out
heat exchanger outlet
Ti
titanium
w
water

2. Finned-tube plastic heat exchanger

2.1. Design and manufacture
Fig. 1 is the ow chart of plastic heat exchanger design and
manufacture process. The application background has already been
addressed in the introduction. The nned-tube structure is necessary since ns are useful to enhance air side heat transfer. Besides,
the ns can provide the necessary mass transfer area in liquid

Application background:
AC condenser/evaporator
Liquid desiccant AC(LDAC)
Water source heat pump
etc.

Structure

Material

Area for heat and

Fin-tube

mass transfer

heat exchanger

Anti-corrosion
Anti-fouling
Heat transfer

High thermal
conductivity plastic

Molding survey

Material research

Injection molding

PP, =1~20 W/mK

Molding restriction
dimensions

Performance calculation
Interaction

dimensions

Heat exchanger
Fig. 1. Plastic heat exchanger design and manufacture ow chart.

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L. Chen et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 33 (2009) 922928

Table 1
Thermal/physical/chemical properties of thermally conductive polypropylene (PP).
Material

Thermal
conductivity
(W/m K)

Density
(kg/
m3)

Flexural
modulus
(MPa)

Flexural
strength
(MPa)

Tensile
modulus
(MPa)

Tensile
strength
(MPa)

PP-a
PP-b

2.3
16.5

1240
1500

5410
8274

37
52

5620
6206

22
29

the better the heat transfer performance, but the minimum n

thickness is about 0.6 mm when PP is used in injection molding
[20].
The geometrical dimensions and layout of the nned-tube are
illustrated in Fig. 2. Some important parameters, i.e. the inside area
per meter length Ali, the outside area between ns per meter length
Alr, the outside n area per meter length Alf and the outside total
area per meter length Alo are calculated from Eqs. (1) to (4):

Ali p  di  1 0:0314 m2
desiccant air conditioning for dehumidifying air/regenerating desiccant. As for the fabrication technologies, injection molding is
especially suitable for the nned-tube heat exchanger manufacture, because the products can weigh from several grams to tens
of kilograms, and the conguration can be complicated with precise dimensions.
The plastic materials used in this paper are two modied types
of polypropylene (PP) which are commercially available. Their
thermal/physical/chemical properties are listed in Table 1, where
the symbols of PP-a and PP-b stand for modied polypropylene
with thermal conductivity of 2.3 W/m K and 16.5 W/m K, respectively. The thermal conductivity values are obtained through testing the injection products by the laser ash technique using a
NETZSCH instrument, of which the maximum experimental uncertainty is 5%.
The heat exchanger dimensions are optimized by parametric
studies of n height, n thickness and spacing between ns. But
the nal dimensions are within the limitation of injection technology and the material for injection. For example, the thinner the n,

1
2

Alr p  do  1  nf  df 0:0366 m

p 2
Alf 2  nf  a2  do 0:21 m2
4
Alo Alr Alf 0:2466 m2

2
3
4

where the number of ns per meter length equals:

nf

1
Sf df

The plastic nned-tube heat exchangers are fabricated in a

8  8 matrix arrangement for the experimental testing and the
tubes in each horizontal line are linked together to form eight
paths as shown in Fig. 3(a). In this way, a crossow heat exchanger
is set up. Fig. 3(b) shows the three plastic heat exchangers made of
different PP. The heat exchangers air-side inlet cross-section
dimensions are 245 mm (width) and 240 mm (height), with depth
(along air ow direction) of 240 mm. The heat transfer areas for the
outside (air side) Ao and inside (water side) Ai are 3.789 m2 and
0.4825 m2, respectively.

Fig. 2. Layout and dimensions of the nned-tubes (unit: mm).

Fig. 3. Plastic nned-tube heat exchangers: (a) tubes linked by elbows; (b) plastic heat exchangers made from different PP (1 ordinary PP; 2 modied PP-a; 3 modied PP-b).

L. Chen et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 33 (2009) 922928

Since the aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of the

plastic heat exchanger, the nned-tubes are connected with copper
bends for simplication. When it is used in corrosive conditions,
the nned-tubes are connected with plastic bends and the whole
heat exchanger is made of plastic.
2.2. Calculation of heat exchanger
The amount of heat transferred between the hot and cold uid
can be calculated by the heat transfer equation (Eq. (6)), where
depending on the surface area used, the overall heat transfer coefcient may be inside area overall heat transfer coefcient Ki or outside area overall heat transfer coefcient Ko:

Q_ K i  Ai  DT m K o  Ao  DT m

Taking the inside area overall heat transfer coefcient Ki as an

example, it is a complicated function of uid properties, ow rate,
nned-tube dimensions, fouling thermal resistance and material
thermal conductivity, and it can be calculated by Eq. (7) [21]. When
the uid conditions and heat exchanger dimensions are set, the
heat exchanger performance is mainly affected by the material
thermal conductivity.

Ki

1
1
hi

ri

di
2k

ln ddo
i

ro
bg

1
ho bg

where

Alo
Ali
Alr Alf gf Alr Alf gf
g

Alo
Alr Alf
b

8
9

2
J 1 mr2 K 1 mr1  J 1 mr 1 K 1 mr 2
gf
ml1 r2 =r 1 J 0 mr1 K 1 mr2 J 1 mr 2 K 0 mr 1

10

where

l r2  r1
a
r 2 p

hi  di
0:023  Re0:8 Pr0:4
kw

11
12
13

and J0, J1, K0, K1 are Bessel functions.

The water side heat transfer coefcient hi is usually calculated
using Dittus and Boelter Eq. (14) [22] for the fully developed turbulent ow:

14

and for laminar ow hi is calculated using Eq. (15) [22]:

Nu

 1=3  0:14
hi  di
d
l
1:86Re Pr1=3
L
kw
ltw

15

The air side heat transfer coefcient ho for the square-n, in-line
tube rows arrangement is obtained by Eq. (16) [21]:


0:67 
0:2
ho  de
Gmax  de
S1  do
0:251
ka
la
do

0:2 
0:4
S1  do
S1  d o

1
Sf
S2  d o

16

where

q.

de Alr  do Alf  Alf =2  nf Alr Alf

17

The fouling thermal resistances of ri and ro are neglected for the

new heat exchanger testing in laboratory conditions. To calculate
the heat transfer, besides Eq. (6), energy conservation must be
met. The air side and water side energy change can be calculated
with Eqs. (18) and (19):

_ a  cp;a  DT a
Q_ Q_ a m
_
_
_ w  cp;w  DT w
Q Qw m

18
19

Eqs. (6), (18) and (19) are also integrated by log mean temperature difference (LMTD) DTm. Although the heat exchanger is in
crossow conguration, when the crosses between the hot and
cold uid are more than four times, it can be regarded as a counterow one [23], so DTm is calculated as:

DT m DT max  DT min = lnDT max =DT min

The values of Ai, Ao, Ar, Af are calculated in Section 2.1 and the n efciency gf is calculated by Eq. (10):

s
2  ho
m
k  df

Nu

925

20

3. Experiment
3.1. Experimental apparatus
The plastic heat exchanger is tested as a part of a ductwork, as
shown in Fig. 4. Two ducts are anged on the plastic heat exchanger inlet and outlet. These ducts are mainly used to rectier the air
ow to achieve a regular ow eld, which will be helpful for air
velocity measurement. The experimental tests are carried out in
an environment chamber and an air condition sensor which measures dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures is placed before duct
A to control the inlet air temperature and humidity. During the
experimental runs, the air relative humidity is kept within 30% to
make sure there will be no condensation on the heat exchanger
surface. At the heat exchanger inlet and outlet, air temperatures
are measured by thermocouples.

Fig. 4. Schematic of the experimental apparatus.

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L. Chen et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 33 (2009) 922928

Table 2
Testing conditions of experimental runs.

Air ow rate (m3/h)

Water ow rate (kg/s)

Ta (C)

Tw (C)

Set value

Low: 670
Middle: 710
High: 755

0.12

26
30
34

8
12
16

The plastic heat exchanger is also connected to a chiller. This

machine provides chilling water during experiments. The water
ows in an overall counter direction with the air. There are thermal
couples at the water inlet and outlet of the heat exchanger to measure the water temperatures.
All the ducts, water pipes and the heat exchanger are covered
with heat insulation materials to reduce the external inuence.
The chromelconstantan thermocouples are calibrated by platinum resistance thermometer, the standard deviation is within
0.1 C. The readings of the thermocouples are automatically recorded by a computer for later analysis. The air ow rate is determined by cross-section average air velocity at duct A, which is
measured by a KIMO hotwire thermo-anemometer, with an uncertain of 3%. The water ow is measured by the timeweight method.
Error analysis procedures are fully discussed in textbook [24].
The maximum experimental uncertainty for air side heat ow rate
Q_ a is 12% and for the water side heat ow rate Q_ w is 20% when
the heat exchanger is made of ordinary PP. This is mainly because
of the low thermal performance of the ordinary PP heat exchanger
that the inlet and outlet temperature differences are very small, as
a result, the corresponding experimental uncertainties are relatively high. However, for the other two heat exchangers made from
thermally conductive plastics, the maximum experimental uncertainties are both within 10%. From a statistical perspective the
measurement errors discussed here would normally be much less
than the maximum.
3.2. Test procedure
At the beginning of each experimental run, the air temperature
at the duct A inlet Ta, the chilling water temperature Tw (see Fig. 4),
the air ow rate and the water ow rate are set to a certain combination of the values listed in Table 2.
The water ow rate is xed since the main thermal resistance is
at air side and the variation of the water ow rate has a relatively
small inuence on the overall heat transfer performance. The combinations of the other three variable parameters make 27 test runs
for each plastic heat exchanger. In each experimental run, the
apparatus is kept running for about 2 h to achieve and maintain
equilibrium. During this time, the airside inlet and outlet air temperatures Ta,in, Ta,out and the water side inlet and outlet temperatures Tw,in, Tw,out (see Fig. 4) are measured by thermocouple and
recorded automatically by a computer. The air ow rate and the
water ow rate are checked either before or after the experimental
run.
When the uctuations of air temperature Ta,in, Ta,out are within
0.1 C for 10 min, equilibrium is considered achieved. And the
data of this period of time are used to calculate the heat exchanger
performance.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Energy equilibrium
For heat exchanger experiments, energy equilibrium between
the hot and cold uids is the basic information to judge the exper-

+10%

1.8
1.6

-10%

1.4

Qw (kW)

Parameters

1.2
1
0.8
0.6
ordinary PP
modified PP-
modified PP-

0.4
0.2
0
0

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8

Qa (kW)
Fig. 5. Energy equilibrium between air and water.

iment accuracy. In experiments, the air side inlet and outlet temperatures Ta,in, Ta,out and water side inlet and outlet temperatures
Tw,in, Tw,out are measured. Also, the air and water ow rates are
measured. With these parameters, the energy changes of the air
side and water side of each experimental run can be calculated
by Eqs. (18) and (19). Fig. 5 shows the energy equilibrium between
air and water of the three heat exchangers that made of different
PP materials. The relative errors are within 10%.
4.2. Overall heat transfer coefcient
For every one of experimental runs, with the measured air and
water temperature parameters, the heat ow rate Q_ can be calculated by Eqs. (18) and (19) and the LMTD DTm in Eq. (20) can be calculated as:

DT m

DT max  DT min
lnDT max  lnDT min
T a;in  T w;out  T a;out  T w;in
lnT a;in  T w;out  lnT a;out  T w;in

21

Fig. 6 is the experimental results of the heat ow rate with the

corresponding LMTD. The data are linearly tted. From Eq. (6), the
slope rates of the tting curves are the arithmetic product of overall heat transfer coefcient with the corresponding heat transfer
area, Ki  Ai or Ko  Ao.
The inside (water side) area Ai outside (air side) area Ao are already known in Section 2.1, which are 0.4825 m2 and 3.789 m2.
So that the inside and outside overall heat transfer coefcients Ki
and Ko can be determined, which are listed in Table 3.
4.3. Effect of thermal conductivity
4.3.1. Prediction and experimental results
In the calculation model developed in Section 2.2, when the
geometric dimensions and uid conditions are settled, the heat exchangers performance is the monodrome function of material
thermal conductivity. The variation of overall heat transfer coefcient with the thermal conductivity can be predicted. Fig. 7 shows
the prediction results of outside overall heat transfer coefcient as
a function of thermal conductivity. Experimental results of the
three plastic nned-tube heat exchangers are marked as points
to compare with the predictions. It is obvious that the prediction
and experimental results agree quite well with each other.

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L. Chen et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 33 (2009) 922928

Table 3
Overall heat transfer coefcient of the plastic heat exchangers.

2
1.8

Material

Air ow rate (m3/

h)

Ki  Ai = Ko  Ao (kW/
K)

Ki (W/m2
K)

Ko (W/m2
K)

PP

670
710
755
670
710
755
670
710
755

0.03387
0.03411
0.03507
0.07120
0.07318
0.07406
0.1285
0.1300
0.1306

70.20
70.69
72.70
147.56
151.67
153.49
266.32
269.43
270.67

8.94
9.00
9.26
18.79
19.31
19.55
33.91
34.31
34.47

1.6

Qe

(kW)

1.4
1.2

PP-a

1
0.8

PP-b

0.6
0.4

ordinary PP
modified PP-
modified PP-

0.2
0

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26
Tm,e (C)

2
1.8

thermal conductivity. Three metals of titanium, aluminum and

copper are selected, of which the thermal conductivities are
22 W/mk, 236 W/mk and 398 W/m K, respectively. The overall
heat transfer coefcients of these metal heat exchangers are used
as comparison bases. Table 4 lists the detailed comparison results.
o
are the relative performance values resulting
The data below KKo;Ti
from heat exchangers overall heat transfer coefcient made from
different thermal conductivity materials divided by that of

1.6

1.2
2

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

50
40

Ko (W/m K)

Qe

(kW)

1.4

30
prediction
ordinary PP
modified PP-
modified PP-

20
10

ordinary PP
modified PP-
modified PP-

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26

10

Tm,e (C)

1.6

Qe

(kW)

1.4
1.2

prediction
ordinary PP
modified PP-
modified PP-

20

0.8

0.6

10

15

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26

Tm,e (C)
Fig. 6. Experimental results of heat ux and LMTD, with linear tting curves: (a) air
ow rate: 670 m3/h; (b) air ow rate: 710 m3/h; (c) air ow rate: 755 m3/h.

25

30

50

30
20

prediction
ordinary PP
modified PP-
modified PP-

10

4.3.2. Comparison with metal heat exchangers

In Section 4.3.1, the calculation model is validated by the experiment results. With this model, the performance of plastic heat exchanger made of thermally conductive PP can be compared with
those metal heat exchangers which have the same dimension
and working condition. Fig. 8 shows the theoretical results of heat
exchanger overall heat transfer coefcient as a function of material

20

(W/mK)

40
2

ordinary PP
modified PP-
modified PP-

Ko (W/m K)

30

30

10

0.2

25

50

0.4

20

40

1.8

Ko (W/m K)

15

(W/mK)

10

15

20

25

30

(W/mK)
Fig. 7. Comparison of predicted and experimental results of outside overall heat
transfer coefcient as the function of thermal conductivity: (a) air ow rate:
670 m3/h; (b) air ow rate: 710 m3/h; (c) air ow rate: 755 m3/h.

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L. Chen et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 33 (2009) 922928

40

Ko (W/m K)

30

20

Ti, = 22 W/mK
Al, = 236 W/mK
Cu, = 398 W/mK

10

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

(W/mK)
Fig. 8. Theoretical relation between overall heat transfer coefcient and thermal
conductivity.

With the validated calculation model, the effects of material

thermal conductivity on heat exchanger performance are studied
in detail, which tells the performance differences between plastic
and metal heat exchangers. The results show that there is a threshold value of material thermal conductivity which divides the performance curve into two parts. Below this value, improving
thermal conductivity can considerably improve the heat exchanger
performance while over this value improving thermal conductivity
contributes very little to improving the heat exchanger performance. For the specied nned-tube plastic heat exchanger in this
paper, when the plastic thermal conductivity can reach over 15 W/
m K, it can achieve more than 95% of the titanium heat exchanger
performance and 84% of the aluminum or copper heat exchangers
performance with the same dimension and working condition.
With its good thermal performance and excellent corrosion and
fouling resistance, the modied PP nned-tube heat exchanger
provides an alternative choice for energy engineering applications
in aggressive environment.
References

Table 4
Performance comparison between heat exchanger made of different materials.
Heat exchanger materials

k (W/m K)

Ko (W/m2 K)

Ko
K o;Ti

Ko
K o;Al

Ko
K o;Cu

Modied PP

15
16
17
18
22
236
398

33.56
33.89
34.19
34.46
35.34
39.69
39.9

0.950
0.959
0.967
0.975
1
1.12
1.13

0.846
0.854
0.861
0.868
0.890
1
1.01

0.841
0.849
0.857
0.864
0.886
0.995
1

Titanium (Ti)
Aluminum (Al)
Copper (Cu)

titanium heat exchanger. For example, the overall heat transfer

coefcient of modied PP with thermal conductivity of 15 W/m K
is 33.56 W/m2 K, and the value of titanium heat exchanger is
35.34 W/m2 K, so the relative performance value is 33.56/
o
means that
35.34 = 95%. Similarly, the values below KK o and KKo;Cu
o;Al
the comparison bases are the performances of aluminum heat exchanger and copper heat exchanger, respectively.
From the comparison results, it is clear that when the plastic
thermal conductivity can reach over 15 W/m K, its performance
can achieve more than 95% of the titanium heat exchanger and
84% of the aluminum and copper heat exchanger.
Also, Fig. 8 reveals an important design guide for plastic nnedtube heat exchangers. The start part of the curve (material thermal
conductivity from 0.2 to about 15 W/m K) is very steep, improving
material thermal conductivity will greatly improve the heat exchanger thermal performance. After the threshold value (about
20 W/m K), the curve trends to be at and the effort to improving
thermal conductivity is worthless since the main heat transfer
resistance comes from the convection process.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, nned-tube heat exchangers are designed and
manufactured with modied PP materials, whose thermal conductivities are 2.3 W/m K and 16.5 W/m K, which are much higher
than ordinary plastic materials. Ordinary PP with thermal conductivity of 0.2 W/m K is also used to make a third heat exchanger for
comparison and validation. Both experiments and calculation are
carried out.
With experimental results, the heat exchangers performances
are determined. It is found that the plastic nned-tube heat exchanger with thermal conductivity of 16.5 W/m K can achieve
overall heat transfer coefcient of about 34 W/m2 K. Also, the
experimental results are compared with calculations and they
agree well with each other.

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