Enhanced Heat Transfer in a Taylor-Couette Heat Exchanger

Heat transfer to a rotating cylinder in a stationary water jacket with an imposed axial flow was experimentally determined for three types of outer surface geometries: a smooth surface, one with small axial grooves, and one with an in-line array of larger cubic protrusions extending to one-half of the annular gap height. Measurements were obtained for the modified Taylor number and the axial Reynolds number in the range 10⁵ to 10⁷ and 800 to 3600, respectively. The axial grooves enhanced the heat transfer over the smooth case by 40% to 100%, and the enhancement increased with the modified Taylor number. The cubic protrusions did not significantly increase the heat transfer and decreased over the smooth case at higher modified Taylor numbers.