Despite numerous studies of Shell and helically coiled tube heat exchangers, a few investigations on the heat transfer and flow characteristic consider the geometrical effects like coil pitch. Moreover, this scarcity is highlighted for the Shell side of this type of heat exchangers. This study reports experimental and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) investigations on heat transfer and flow characteristics of a Shell and helically coiled tube heat exchanger. The experiments were carried out using a helically coiled tube, which was placed in a cylindrical Shell. Hot and cold water were used as the process fluids on the tube and Shell side, respectively. The CFD modeling technique was employed to describe the experimental results, fluid flow pattern, and temperature profiles as well as dead zones in the heat exchanger. Quantitative predicted results of CFD modeling show a good agreement with the experimental data for temperature. The effect of the coil pitch on heat transfer rate was numerically studied and it was found that the heat transfer coefficient intensifies with an increase in coil pitch. The average turbulent kinetic energy (k) for the old coil tube and twice coil pitch heat exchanger was computed as 2.9×10-3 and 3.3×10-3 m2/s2, respectively. This indicates an increase of about 14% in flow turbulent kinetic energy. Nusselt numbers were compared with those estimated using published correlation and a mean relative error (MRE) of 14.5% was found between the experimental and predicted data. However, a good agreement was obtained in lower Shell Reynolds numbers (lower than Re=200).

In this paper, Shell-side stream flow distribution on the Shell-side fluid flow of Shell-tube heat exchanger by baffle space and baffle cut variation computationally was conducted. Flow distribution plays an important role to obtaining high performance in the effective operation of a Shell-tube heat exchanger. Uniform flow distribution is critical to obtaining high performance and without tube vibration in Shell-tube heat exchanger devices. Also Stream flow rate is a very useful to understand the heat transfer and pressure drop along a Shell-tube heat exchanger with the flow distribution. So the Shell-side designs of a Shell-tube heat exchanger, in particular the baffle spacing and baffle cut dependencies of the stream flow rate are investigated. In the present article a novel technique base on the proposed method presented to measure the flow rates in different baffle sections. The proposed analysis method used hydraulic network principals for evaluation flow velocity distribution on a Shell-tube heat exchanger has been developed. According to obtained results baffle space and baffle cut configuration significantly affect the flow field distribution. window-section flow stream have higher flow rate in the Shell-side.

This paper presents a rapid algorithm for designing of Shell-and-tube heat exchangers equipped with static mixer inserts. The proposed algorithm uses formulation of the Kern and Bell-Delaware methods to describe the Shell side flow pattern and the effect of calculation of heat transfer coefficient separately. The results are considered for application of the proposed algorithm in simple real case studies. In this work advantages of heat exchangers equipped with different static mixers and the effect of their working conditions in turbulent regime are studied. The effect of changing the number of tube passes is evaluated. The results are also compared with the previous studies.

Heat transfer and cost are two important parameters of designing a heat exchanger. Mostly, in engineering affairs the goals of interest for optimization are in conflict with each other. In the other hand, by making progress in one parameter, an undesirable factor appears. There is the same problem in heat exchangers. By increasing the heat transfer, heat area, cost and pressure drop increase. Thus, instead of one solution, there are several solutions. In this study for computing the heat transfer and pressure drop, Bell Delaware method is used. Lots of usual optimization methods for extracting the solutions are not efficient. At current research an efficient method is presented based on group particle algorithm and genetic, according to multi goaled function for optimizing of these exchangers. In addition, in optimization by two algorithms, two tube arrangement modes were considered, both square and triangular arrangement, which, At the end of this research, the results obtained from two algorithms for different modes and other research results have been compared.

In this paper the thermal behavior of the Shell-side show of a Shell-and-tufe heat exchanger has been studied using theoretical and experimental methods. The experimental method Provided the effect of the major parameters of the Shell-side flow on thermal energy exchange. In the numerical method, besides the effect of the major parameters, the effect of different geometric parameters and Re on thermal energy exchange in Shell-side flow has been considered. Numerical analysis for six baffle spacing namely 0.20, 0.25, 0.33, 0.50, 0.66, and 1.0 of inside diameter of the Shell and five baffle cuts namely 16%, 20%, 25%, 34%, and 46% of baffle diameter, have been carried out. In earlier numerical analyses, the repetition of an identical geometrical module of exchanger as a calculation domain has been studied. While in this work, as a new approach in current numerical analysis, the entire geometry of Shell-and-tube heat exchanger including entrance and exit regions as a calculation domain has been chosen. The results show that the flow and heat profiles vary alternatively between baffles. A Shell-and-tube heat exchanger of gas-liquid chemical reactor system has been used in the experimental method. Comparison of the numerical results show good agreement with experimental results of this research and other published experimental results over a wide range of Reynolds numbers (1,000-1,000,000).

Improving heat transfer and performance in a radial, finned, Shell and tube heat exchanger is studied in this study. According to the second law of thermodynamics, the most irreversibilities of convective heat transfer processes are due to fluid friction and heat transfer via finite temperature difference. Entransy dissipations are due to the irreversibilities of convective heat transfer. Therefore, the number of entransy dissipation is considered as the optimization objective. Thirteen optimization variables are considered, including the number of tubes, tube diameter, tube length, fin height, fin thickness, the number of fins per inch length of tube and baffle spacing ratio. The “ Delaware modified” technique is used to determine heat transfer coefficients and the Shell-side pressure drop. In this technique, the baffle cut is 20 percent. The results show that using genetic algorithm the optimization can improve the heat transfer by 13percent and performance of heat exchanger increased by 18percent. In order to show the accuracy of the algorithm the results compared to the particle swarm optimization.

In this study, the effect of the tube material on the thermal stress generated in a vertical Shell and tube heat exchanger is investigated. Shell and tube heat exchangers are the most common heat exchangers used in industries. One of the most common failures in these exchangers in the industry is the tube failure at the junction of the tube to tubesheet. When the Shell side and the tube side fluid with temperature difference, flow in the heat exchangers, a temperature gradient occurs in the tube. Temperature gradients cause thermal stress in the tube, especially at the junction of the tube to tubesheet where there is no possibility of expansion and contraction. Therefore, in this study, it was tried to make changes in order to reduce the effect of thermal stress in the failure. For this purpose, temperature distribution, thermal stress distribution, and its effects on failure were investigated by changing the material. In order to perform the required analysis, three dimensional models of the inlet zone of the Shell side were created, and steady state temperature distribution was obtained, and the stress caused by temperature gradient was analyzed. Because of the interference between fluid and structure in this study, the indirectly coupled field analysis was used. In this way, the thermal analysis results were converted into indirect couple structural analysis as loading. Among the analyzed materials, the lowest rate of stress is for the copper tubes. However, steel tubes have the best safety factor regarding thermal stress.