Numerical analysis for heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of "Shell-tube" heat exchanger with various baffle factor

Abstract: In numbers of kinds of heat exchanger, the shell-tube heat exchanger is the most commonly used type of heat exchanger in the industry field. In order to improve the thermal performance of the heat ex-changer, this study was analyzed heat transfer characteristics according to arrangement of baffle and direction of baffle and bump phase of baffle about shell-tube heat exchanger using appropriate SST (Shear Stress Transport) turbulence model for flow separation and boundary layer analysis. As the boundary condition for CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis, the inlet temperature of shell side was constantly 344 K and the variation of the water flow rate was 6, 12, 18 and 24 l/min. As the result of analysis, zigzag baffle ar-rangement enhances heat transfer rate and pressure drop. Furthermore, in the direction of the baffle, heat transfer rate is more improved with vertical type and angle 45° type than existing type, and pressure drop was little difference. Also, the bump shape of baffle surface contributes to heat transfer rate and pressure drop improvement due to the increased heat transfer area. Through analysis results, we knew that the increase of the heat transfer was influenced by flow separation, fluid residual time, contact area with the tube, flow rate, swirl and so on.