I want to know how I can improve this experiment: Water and wallpaper paste enter heat exchanger I calculate flow rates of each- water with rotameter, paste with stopwatch and bucket from outlet. Temp diff are measured digitally. From this i can get the heat transfer coefficient. So what improvemtns are there? will measuring the press drop improve the results, i know the bucket and stopwatch is a major source of error... but what else?How does a pressure drop affect the results of the heat exchange coefficient -is it just lower mass flow rate?
Plate warmth exchangers are a rather rather expert technologies and the kind of advice you desire isn't reachable in any however the main well-known varieties. have you ever tried a information superhighway seek for plate warmth exchangers and plate and physique warmth exchangers. There are quite a few manufacturers accessible?
If you're not 100% certain if something might be important/vary if you can it's best to test/measure it anyway. if a change in something doesn't affect the results then you found by experiment that (in the situation tested anyway) that it's not that important a parameter, but look up Feynman's cargo cult science lecture- it explains the often forgotten significance of null results- calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/... . ie Just because something doesn't cause a change, doesn't mean it doesn't add to knowledge. Goal of experiment should be to collect data (not fit a model- that might come afterwards), and if you've not measured something it you can't account for it in your dataset except by repeating it/relying on someone else's findings. you can always ignore data if it's same in all circumstances you want to try to keep everything you're not measuring to be the same, between different runs. try getting temps of water/wall paper not just temp difference. try making sure the heat ex, and the fluids all start out at the same temps. I'd guess changes in pressure drop could change turbulence. Only way of finding out if that's affects heat flux significantly is to test it.
