Proceedings of CHT-08

ICHMT International Symposium on Advances in Computational Heat Transfer

May 11-16, 2008, Marrakech, Morocco
CHT-08-xxx

EFFECT OF BAFFLE ORIENTATION ON HEAT TRANSFER AND PRESSURE DROP

OF SHELL AND TUBE HEAT EXCHANGERS WITH AND WITHOUT LEAKAGE
FLOWS
Koorosh Mohammadi*, Wolfgang Heidemann*, and Hans Mller-Steinhagen*,#
*
Institute of Thermodynamics and Thermal Engineering,University of Stuttgart, Germany
#
Institute of Technical Thermodynamics, German Aerospace Centre, Stuttgart, Germany

Correspondence author. Fax: +49 711 6856 3503 Email: heidemann@itw.uni-stuttgart.de

ABSTRACT The effect of baffle orientation on the heat transfer and pressure drop of shell and
tube heat exchangers in the domain of turbulent flow is investigated numerically using the
commercial CFD code FLUENT. The segmentally baffled shell and tube heat exchangers
considered follow the TEMA standards and consist of 76 and 660 plain tubes respectively, with
fixed outside diameter and arranged in a triangular layout. Air, water and engine oil with Prandtl
numbers in the range of 0.7 to 206 are used as shell-side fluids. For horizontally and vertically
orientated baffles, simulations are performed using different flow velocities at the inlet nozzle. A
shell-side gain factor suitable for the assessment of shell and tube heat exchangers is introduced as
ratio of the shell side heat transfer coefficient to the shell-side pressure drop. To facilitate the
decision between horizontal and vertical baffle orientation, a performance factor is used as ratio
of the gain factor for horizontally orientated baffles to the gain factor for vertical baffle orientation.
The simulation results show a significant influence of the baffle orientation on the shell-side
pressure drop and heat transfer of shell and tube heat exchangers. In the shell and tube heat
exchanger with leakage flows the vertical baffle orientation seems to be more advantageous than
the horizontal orientation. The benefit of vertical baffle orientation on horizontal baffle orientation
is more noticeable for gases. Contrariwise, the simulation results for shell and tube heat exchangers
without leakages show the advantage of the horizontal baffle orientation over the vertical
orientation, particularly in the inlet and outlet zone for all investigated shell-side fluids.
The comparison of calculation results with and without leakage flows presents different behaviour
and underlines the importance of a consideration of tube-baffle leakage and bypass streams for the
prediction of the performance factor of technical heat exchangers.

NOMENCLATURE
Nu0,AW
Re,l

Modified shell side Nusselt number

Modified shell side Reynolds number

Abbreviation
HEX
Heat exchanger

Greek symbols

Void ratio of tube bank

Gain factor

Performance factor

INTRODUCTION