Forced Convection Laminar Film Condensation of Downward Flowing Vapor on a Single Horizontal Elliptic Cylinder or a Bank of Elliptical Tubes

A numerical study is performed on the laminar film condensation of pure saturated vapor flowing in the direction of gravity on a single horizontal elliptic cylinder or a bank of elliptical tubes. Temperature, velocity distribution, and heat transfer coefficient of the fully developed flow are carried out with a fully implicit finite difference scheme. The equality of shear stress at the liquid-vapor interface is used as the coupling condition between the two phases. The inertia and convection term are retained in the analysis. Outside of the vapor boundary layer, the vapor phase velocity is obtained from potential flow. The method of source density distribution on the body surface is used for determination of the external vapor velocity in elliptical tube banks. The effect of inundation produced by condensate on upper ellipses is taken into account by assuming that the vapor velocity field is not affected by the condensate flow from one elliptic cylinder to another. Based on the obtained solutions of flow field, the effect of surface tension, the interaction because of the ellipse spacing, and the inundation on the heat transfer coefficient and the boundary layer separation point have been evaluated. The results of this analysis are discussed especially in function of eccentricity e (effect of the surface tension). The heat transfer in interellipse space is analyzed and compared with the theoretical and experimental results of other authors. Good agreement is shown.