Experimental Estimation of the Local Convective Heat Transfer in a Corrugated Tube under the Laminar Flow Regime

Convection heat transfer enhancement techniques play a vital role in many industrial thermal processing applications, including food thermal processing, and the pharmaceutical, and chemical manufacturing industries. These techniques contribute to reducing the size and cost of heat exchangers, conserving energy, improving product quality, and enhancing both energy efficiency and thermal performance. Among passive solutions, corrugated wall tubes are widely adopted in heat exchangers for such applications. This study applies the inverse heat conduction problem (IHCP) method combined with infrared thermography data to estimate the local temperature and convective heat transfer coefficient distributions for forced convection in a transversally corrugated wall tube with high viscosity fluid flow under laminar conditions. The IHCP is solved within the corrugated wall domain using measured external wall temperatures as input. Thermal performance was evaluated over a Reynolds number range of 290–1200. The findings showed that at Re < 350, irregular local temperature and convective heat transfer distributions led to reduced thermal efficiency, unreliable sterilization, and increased microbial risk, whereas for 650 < Re < 1200, thermal efficiency improved significantly. These findings support the development of more efficient heat exchanger designs, offering significant benefits to industries requiring precise thermal management.