Helical and chaotic heat exchangers: Flow regimes and efficiency.

This article focuses on the development and analysis of a novel Chaotic Heat Exchanger (ADCHE) designed to enhance heat transfer efficiency by inducing chaotic advection through alternating Dean flows, compared to a traditional Helical Heat Exchanger (HHE). Using Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS), the study demonstrates that ADCHE significantly improves convective heat transfer—achieving up to a 22.2% enhancement in thermal performance—while maintaining moderate friction losses across Reynolds numbers from 200 to 8600. The chaotic geometry disrupts the formation of stable Dean vortices typical in helical coils, leading to stronger secondary flows, thinner thermal boundary layers, and more uniform temperature distributions, especially at lower Reynolds numbers. These findings suggest that ADCHE offers practical advantages for industrial applications requiring efficient mixing and heat transfer, such as continuous flow reactors and microfluidic heat exchangers, by combining enhanced thermal performance with compact design.