Spiral turbulators are the classic underdog story.

Spiral turbulators are basically the dark horses in the range. They offer up more performance than twisted tapes for a very reasonable increase in pressure drop. In fact, a spiral turbulator offers performance that is in between a twisted tape 4.5 L/D and a low dense wire turbulator.
This makes it a great plug-and-play for retrofit scenarios with lower pd allowances and even in refinery crude preheat trains to both improve performance and mitigate fouling on account of the additional shear stress.
CEI Spirals have been tested in Texas and the performance data on htc and pd is mapped into CEI’s VorTX.dll The key parameters when testing these in Texas were to get the correct pitch, thickness of wire and clearance to give the best possible performance characteristics.

Big Use Cases

1. Any application where the tubeside is the limiting factor (like oil or glycol coolers).

2. Where fouling mitigation on account of increasing shear stress is possible.

3. In vaporizers plagued with issues like film boiling and mist flow. Further, enhancing bubble cutting will also help with overall HTC improvement.

Design Method

Software users can request a licensed dll from CEI. That will allow users to simply input the pressure drop allowance as a constraint to have the software determine the best part ID available that will give the max performance for that pd allowance. Users can also input a part ID and see how it will perform for a particular use case. For non-software users, you can send your datasheet and we’ll model it in software and send you a pdf output summary

Possible Refinery Performance Monitoring Software Integration: Users can look at the possible improvement in furnace inlet temp by the addition of twisted tape turbulators in one or more heat exchangers and the cross impact that performance will have on the overall furnace inlet temp. This can show up as a performance improvement both in heat transfer and as a reduction in fouling on account of the shear stress principle.

Installation and Retention

There is a pull hook at one end. Simply insert wire through the tube from the outlet to inlet side and then use the wire to grapple onto the hook and pull the turbulator through the tube in the direction of the fluid flow, the anchor will then hit the tube once insertion is complete.

Tube Size Ranges with Data Backing: 3/8 inch, ½ inch, 5/8 inch, 0.75 inch, 1 inch, 1.25 inch and 1.5 inch.

Tube Size Ranges without Data Backing: We can make turbulators as small as ¼ inch and as large as 1.5 inches.

What VorTX is.

VorTX is Concept Engineering International’s dynamic link library (DLL) developed by HTRI under proprietary contract with Concept Engineering International. Multiple Concept Engineering International turbulators (wire and spiral tube inserts) were tested at HTRI’s Research and Technology Center in Navasota, Texas, USA. The VorTX DLL contains tube side single phase heat transfer and pressure drop correlations for modeling Concept Engineering International’s products which were developed under proprietary contract with HTRI using Concept Engineering International’s proprietary data. HTRI used laminar flow CFD results to supplement empirical testing measurements at Reynolds numbers under 500.

The VorTX DLL can be used with HTRI Software for the following purposes:

1. Identifying an optimal Concept Engineering International product from those supported by the VorTX DLL based on utilizing the maximum amount of pressure drop allowed.

2. Evaluating the performance of a Concept Engineering International product supported by the VorTX DLL that resembles the geometry of those tested by HTRI.

What VorTX enables

Data really drives every enhancement decision we make.

We’re looking for the best operating window for our products from a Reynolds standpoint.

We’re diving deep into wall correction factor impact of our geometries in software outputs.

We’re looking at the additional hydraulic load of each geometry. Small tweaks in angles of attack. How much the shear stress is when you pit turbulator vs bare tube. What the impact on fouling is likely to be because of that additional wall sheer stress.

How we can disrupt film boiling to move over to nucleate boiling, arrest mist flow and reduce bubbles down to size.

These are questions that only data has the answer for.

Our turbulator range (multiple geometries) has been tested for a hard data mining operation. Post that, the data has been analyzed and curve fitted and then modeled into correlations along with a test report for each insert geometry.

We’ve also done supplemental CFD work via a proprietary contract to home in on more accuracy.

To completely integrate into software platforms, we’ve also had developed the VorTX.DLL plugin that will hold this data and allow you, the user, to design your exchangers using our products in a matter of seconds if you’re using compatible software.

If you’re an end-user like a refinery who uses a performance monitoring software, we’re also looking at hard coding our mined data in software such as this to see the impact we can have on refinery exchangers to mitigate fouling by looking at shear stress increases and what that will mean for overall CO2 emissions reduction.