Computational analysis of turbulent flow and thermal transfer in a shell and tube heat exchanger

Abstract

In order to gain an understanding of the mechanism for increasing thermal performance in the shell side, two models of shell and tube heat exchangers are proposed in this study. Numerical investigations of the shell side fluid flow and heat transfer are performed using CFD FLUENT commercial software based on the k-ε model, the conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy are solved by the finite volume method. The results show that the fluid is completely affected by the baffles. The heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop varies significantly in the case of the presence of the baffle as an increase from 1.86% and 21.67% successively, the total heat transfer rate increase by 1.11%. The velocity increases by 12% in the case without baffles and by 19% in the case with baffles.