DESIGN AND COMPARATIVE CFD ANALYSIS OF SHELL AND TUBE HEAT EXCHANGER

Heat exchangers are one of the most important components of the processing industries and also power plants. The pressure drop and the temperature variation in them are altered based on the component design as per operating parameters. As an integral part of design, baffles which are part of the heat exchanger serve the purpose in altering the pressure drop. In order to reduce the flow induced vibrations and reduce pressure drop different types of baffles are being designed and used and one such baffle is helical baffle. Helical baffles force the flow through the system be to be rotational and follow a helical path due to the geometry of the continuous helical baffles, which results in a significant increase in heat transfer coefficient per unit pressure drop in the heat exchanger. Besides this a properly designed continuous helical baffles can reduce fouling in the shell side and prevent the flow-induced vibration as well. In the current study an attempt has been made to understand the influence of baffle design on the pressure drop in the heat exchanger. A comparison was made between a segmental baffled, helical baffled and a bafflesless heat exchanger by designing the baffles and performing CFD simulation using CATIA V5 and ANSYS 15.0. It was concluded from the results that helical baffles which are our primary interest of study showed an effective pressure drop of 0.17134Pa which varied slightly from the other two. Further the pressure drop can be improved by modifying the design of heat exchanger with helical baffles