Computational Study of the Heat Transfer and Fluid Structure of a Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger

A common technique to improve the performance of shell and tube heat
exchangers (STHE) is by redirecting the flow in the shell side with a series of baffles. A
key aspect in this technique is to understand the interaction of the fluid dynamics and
heat transfer. Computational fluid dynamics simulations and experiments were performed
to analysis the 3-dimensional flow and heat transfer on the shell side of an STHE with
and without baffles. Although, it was found that there was a small difference in the
average exit temperature between the two cases, the heat transfer coefficient was locally
enhanced in the baffled case due to flow structures. The flow in the unbaffled case was
highly streamed, while for the baffled case the flow was a highly complex flow with
vortex structures formed by the tip of the baffles, the tubes, and the interaction of flow
with the shell wall.