Numerical investigation of the effects of different baffle types on the thermal performance of a shell and tube heat exchanger

Abstract

In this study, the thermal performance of a small scale shell and tube heat exchanger was performed according to the baffle type by using three dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method. In numerical calculations, segmental and continuous helical baffle types were selected to get the comparative results. For helical baffle type, we used two different models that the numbers of helical rotations and baffle spacing length were different. Thus, we determined five different numerical models and the thermal performance of each models were evaluated under different inlet temperature values selected as 50, 60 and 70°C for the tube side. The inlet temperature value and the mass flow rate of shell side were kept constant during all the numerical calculations. The heat transfer calculations were achieved by using Logarithmic Mean Temperature Difference (LMTD) method. We also employed the Bell-Delaware method which can be used accurately for shell and tube heat exchangers. The highest thermal performance was determined in Case-IV which had equal baffle spacing and the maximum number of rotations for continuous helical baffle. The predicted total pressure drop results obtained from the numerical calculations were in good agreement with the calculated total pressure drop from Bell-Delaware method. The lowest pressure drop and the highest thermal performance were achieved for continuous helical baffle type compared to the segmental equal spacing baffle type. The numerical simulations based on CFD analysis can provide more information about heat exchangers and this tool can be used to improve both design and the thermal performance of heat exchangers.