Influence of perforated twisted tapes with vortex generator wings on heat transfer performance and entropy in a heat exchanger tube

This study conducts an investigative exploration of thermal and hydraulic performance regarding hybrid inserts which combine perforated twisted tapes with vortex generator wings mounted inside circular tubes. The insert design makes use of both swirl flow and secondary vortex generation which breaks up the thermal boundary layer and boosts convective heat transfer rates. During this investigation, researchers utilized water as the working fluid at Reynolds number (Re) from 3000 to 21,000 to study the effect of three perforation diameter ratio (d/D) 0.143, 0.19, and 0.238 and respective Vortex generator (VG) edge cut ratio (a/D) 0.143, 0.19, and 0.238. Nusselt number (Nu) reach 182.3 % and thermal enhancement factor (TEF) achieve 1.68 at Re = 15,000 when using the enhanced tube compared to a smooth tube. The industrial application of larger VG openings at standard spacing produced a beneficial relationship between thermal performance and flow resistance when the pressure rise reached 345 %. The analysis of entropy generation showed heat transfer irreversibility gave way to frictional irreversibility when both perforation dimension and Re became larger. System design optimization prerequisites involved trade-offs which met Bejan number (Be) analysis trends. The Random Forest machine learning model combined with ANN and Linear Regression models contributed to thermal parameter prediction (Nu, f, TEF) by delivering a predictive accuracy level with less than 6.6 % deviation. The research leads to vital knowledge needed for developing compact heat exchangers integrating passive enhancement methods.