Abstract
Shell and tube heat exchangers (STHX) remain a popular choice in many industrial applications due to its large ratios of heat transfer area to volume and weight and great flexibility to meet almost any service requirement. Various parameters affect the thermal and hydraulic characteristics of STHX. In the present study, the thermo-hydraulic performance of shell and tube heat exchanger (STHX) is investigated numerically using ANSYS Fluent. The investigation is carried out for different flow conditions (5000 ≤ Re ≤ 30,000), baffle cut (25% and 36%), and baffle spacing (4 and 6). Increasing the Reynolds number has no effect on recirculation zones but results in enhancement in thermal performance at the cost of pressure drop. It was observed that 25% baffle cut gave the best performance with the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop being 12.74% and 45.59% higher than 36% baffle cut for Re = 30,000 respectively. It was also found that the recirculation zones diminish as the number of baffles increase with the heat transfer coefficient for 6 baffles is higher than 4 baffles by about 23% and the pressure drop for 6 baffles being 33.23% lower than with 6 baffles.
Authors
Nishant Jain