Comparison of heat transfer coefficient per pressure drop ratio in shell-and-tube heat exchanger with segmental and helical baffle

Abstract

Paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Turkey, 19-21 July, 2010.

In this paper based on the simplified periodic model, the performance of two shell and tube heat exchangers are studied by using CFD method. Simulations are carried out to study on the shell side of two cases, one with segmental baffles and other with middle overlapped helical baffles in the angle of 40. According to periodic geometric characteristic of shell and tube heat exchangers, the simulations are conducted for one period by using periodic boundaries. All parameters of studied cases are same except the baffles geometries. It worth it to be told that for results validation, our comparisons are based on an lSI numerical study. For fixed thermal load and allowed pressure drop the heat transfer coefficient per unit pressure drop is the most meaningful comparison criterion, so comparison of cases are based on heat transfer coefficient per unit pressure drop verses same shell side mass flow rate. The result shows that the heat exchanger with segmental baffles has worse results about 80-907. lower than the case with helical baffles which shows the better performance of helical baffles. It should be mentioned that the results of this study are used to design pump around heat exchanger of Buten-1 unit in Tabriz petrochentical company.