Thermohydraulic Analysis of Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchanger with Segmental Baffles

In this study, the experimental analysis was performed on the shell-and-tube type heat exchanger containing segmental baffles at different orientations. In the current work, three angular orientations ( ) 0°, 30°, and 60° of the baffles were analyzed for laminar flow having the Reynolds number range 303–1516. It was observed that, with increase of Reynolds number from 303 to 1516, there was a 94.8% increase in Nusselt number and 282.9% increase in pressure drop. Due to increase of Reynolds number from 303 to 1516, there is a decrease in nondimensional temperature factor for cold water ( ) by 57.7% and hot water ( ) by 57.1%, respectively. 1. Introduction A heat exchanger is a device built for efficient heat transfer from one medium to another in order to carry and process energy [1]. It is widely used in petroleum refineries, chemical plants, petrochemical plants, natural gas processing, air conditioning, refrigeration, and automotive applications. The most commonly used type of heat exchanger is the shell-and-tube heat exchanger. To increase the heat transfer rate in shell and tube type heat exchanger, the segmental baffles are introduced inside the cover pipe [2–6]. The flow arrangement used in analysis is laminar counter flow as it is more efficient than parallel flow arrangement [7]. The different orientations of baffles in heat exchanger [8–10] are given in Figure 1. Figure 1: Shell-and-tube type heat exchanger having (a) 0°, (b) 30°, and (c) 60° baffle angles. The common focus of publication is to predict the variation of LMTD, heat transfer coefficient, Nusselt number, and pressure drop with change in values of Reynolds number for 0°, 30°, and 60° baffles situated in heat exchanger as shown in Figure 1. The Reynolds number will be varying from 303 to 1516. The enhancement of Nusselt number with increase in Reynolds number will be presented by Zohir [11], Tandiroglu [12], and Promvonge [13]. The heat transfer coefficient values are calculated using the log-mean-temperature-difference (LMTD) method [14] from the temperature difference and the heat transfer area. Gay et al. [15] and Mehrabian et al. [16] concluded that the heat transfer coefficient increases with inserting baffles. Thundil et al. [17] observed that the pressure drop will decrease with increasing baffle inclination angle and the heat transfer rate increases with increasing baffle inclination angle. 2. Test Specimen A variety of different strategies are available to improve the performance of shell-and-tube type heat exchanger as discussed by Walde [18]. The present paper mainly