Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Malta, 16-18 July, 2012.
The present paper discusses the prediction of pressure drop
across spacer both by employing a set of correlations proposed
by Rehme (1973) and a theoretical model. The theoretical
model considers the sum of expansion, contraction and friction
losses at the spacer. The results obtained by the theoretical
model indicate that the pressure drop is strongly dependent on
the flow area ratio and the length of the spacer as well. In
addition, the pressure loss coefficient is found to decrease with
the Reynolds number. It is observed that the pressure drop
correlation does not take into account the length of the spacer
and predicts a lower value of pressure loss coefficient
compared to the theoretical model.
