Hindawi Publishing Corporation

ISRN Chemical Engineering

Volume 2013, Article ID 548676, 5 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/548676

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

Amarjit Singh1 and Satbir S. Sehgal2

1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, RPC, Railmajra 144533, India
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chandigarh University, Gharuan 140413, India

Correspondence should be addressed to Amarjit Singh; sandhar88@gmail.com

Received 30 June 2013; Accepted 1 August 2013

Academic Editors: C. Chen, I. Poulios, and A. M. Seayad

Copyright 2013 A. Singh and S. S. Sehgal. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.

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 3031516. 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%, respec-
tively.

1. Introduction are calculated using the log-mean-temperature-difference

(LMTD) method [14] from the temperature difference and
A heat exchanger is a device built for efficient heat transfer the heat transfer area. Gay et al. [15] and Mehrabian et al.
from one medium to another in order to carry and process [16] concluded that the heat transfer coefficient increases with
energy [1]. It is widely used in petroleum refineries, chemical inserting baffles. Thundil et al. [17] observed that the pressure
plants, petrochemical plants, natural gas processing, air drop will decrease with increasing baffle inclination angle
conditioning, refrigeration, and automotive applications. The and the heat transfer rate increases with increasing baffle
most commonly used type of heat exchanger is the shell- inclination angle.
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 [26]. The flow arrangement 2. Test Specimen
used in analysis is laminar counter flow as it is more efficient
than parallel flow arrangement [7]. The different orientations A variety of different strategies are available to improve
of baffles in heat exchanger [810] are given in Figure 1. the performance of shell-and-tube type heat exchanger as
The common focus of publication is to predict the discussed by Walde [18]. The present paper mainly attempts to
variation of LMTD, heat transfer coefficient, Nusselt number, study the different effects in shell-and-tube heat exchanger by
and pressure drop with change in values of Reynolds number increasing Reynolds number with segmental baffles at 0 , 30 ,
for 0 , 30 , and 60 baffles situated in heat exchanger as shown and 60 situated in the cover pipe. The model is situated with
in Figure 1. The Reynolds number will be varying from 303 to four segmental baffles. The various dimensions used in heat
1516. exchanger are shown in Figure 2. The working fluid used is
The enhancement of Nusselt number with increase in deionized water. The material used for the design of model is
Reynolds number will be presented by Zohir [11], Tandiroglu galvanized iron. The geometric parameters of shell-and-tube
[12], and Promvonge [13]. The heat transfer coefficient values heat exchanger are given in Table 1.
2 ISRN Chemical Engineering

Cold water outlet Cold water inlet Cold water outlet Cold water inlet
Segmental baffle Adapter
Segmental Adapter
baffle plate plate
Shell Shell
Inner pipe Inner pipe

Hot water Hot water Hot water Hot water

inlet outlet inlet outlet

(a) (b)
Cold water outlet Cold water inlet
Adapter
Segmental baffle
plate Shell

Inner pipe

Hot water Hot water

inlet outlet
(c)

Figure 1: Shell-and-tube type heat exchanger having (a) 0 , (b) 30 , and (c) 60 baffle angles.

La Table 1: Main dimensions and features in heat exchanger.

Da
/ 1.86
/ 2.67
Xc / 16.6
/ 2.86

: 0 , 30 , and 60 .
Dc

Table 2: Data reduction.

Dh
Lc S.
Parameters Data reduction
no.
Lh
Heat transfer =
1.
Figure 2: Dimensions used in heat exchanger. coefficient
Logarithmic
mean ((in) (in) ) ((out) (out) )
2. =
temperature ln (((in) (in) ) / ((out) (out) ))
3. Results and Discussion difference
Nondimensional
In the present study, different cases were studied to under- temperature (out) (in)
3. =
stand the LMTD values, Nusselt number, heat transfer coeffi- factor for cold (out)
cient, and pressure drop of shell-and-tube type heat exchan- water
ger having hot water and cold water inlets. Performance Nondimensional
comparison and other details are given in Table 2. temperature (in) (out)
4. =
The variation of LMTD values with different Reynolds factor for hot (in)
numbers is shown in Figure 3. The variation of heat transfer water
coefficient with Reynolds number at different inlet temper-
5. Nusselt number Nu =
atures is shown in Figure 4, and the variation of Nusselt
number with Reynolds number is shown in Figure 5. Figure 6 Reynolds
6. Re =
shows the variation of ratio of temperature difference () number
for cold water with increasing Reynolds number, and the
variation of ratio of temperature difference () for hot water
with increasing Reynolds number is shown in Figure 7.
Figure 3 shows the variation of LMTD with Reynolds number from 303 to 1516 there was 23.15 to 38.5% increase
number. It was observed that, with the increase of Reynolds in LMTD values. The increase in LMTD value with Reynolds
ISRN Chemical Engineering 3

50 60

50
40

40
30
LMTD

Nu
30
20
20

10
10

0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000
Re Re
Test run 1: inlet uid temp. at 70 Test run 1: inlet uid temp. at 31
Test run 2: inlet uid temp. at 80 Test run 2: inlet uid temp. at 28
Test run 3: inlet uid temp. at 70
Figure 3: Variation of LMTD with Reynolds number.
Test run 4: inlet uid temp. at 80

Figure 5: Variation of Nusselt number with Reynolds number for

2000 different inlet fluid temperatures.

1500 0.35
h (W/m2 K)

0.3

1000 0.25

0.2

0.15
500
0.1

0.05
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000
0
Re 0 500 1000 1500 2000
Re
Test run 1: inlet uid temp. at 31
Test run 2: inlet uid temp. at 28 Test run 1: inlet uid temp. at 31
Test run 3: inlet uid temp. at 70 Test run 2: inlet uid temp. at 28
Test run 4: inlet uid temp. at 80
Figure 6: Variation of with Reynolds number (for cold water
Figure 4: Variation of heat transfer coefficient versus Reynolds inlet).
number for different inlet fluid temperatures.

Figure 8 shows the change of pressure drop with variation

number may be attributed to less retention time within the in Reynolds number. It was observed that the pressure drop
heat exchanger for the same length of flow. increases with the increase in Reynolds number up to 282.9%.
Figure 4 shows the variation of the heat transfer coef- The measured pressure drop is in good agreement with the
ficient with Reynolds number. With increase of Reynolds estimated value. A gradual change in the pressure drop with
number from 303 to 1516, the increase of heat transfer coef- Reynolds number is attributed to the temperature depen-
ficient was 95.1%. The increase of heat transfer coefficient is dence of fluid viscosity and the increasing contraction and
attributed to the increase of mass flow rate due to which the expansion pressure losses at the inlet and outlet portion of
heat transfer rate increases. the heat exchanger, respectively.
Figure 5 shows the variation of Nusselt number with Figure 9 shows the variation of the heat transfer coeffi-
Reynolds number. It was observed, that with the increase cient with Reynolds number for three different baffle orien-
of Reynolds number from 303 to 1516, there was a 94.8% tations. It was observed that, with the introduction of the
increase in Nusselt number. The increase in Nusselt number baffles, the heat transfer coefficient increases leading to more
is attributed to the enhancement in heat transfer rate with heat transfer rate due to introduction of swirl and more
increase in velocity of fluid. convective surface area. It was also observed that, as the angle
4 ISRN Chemical Engineering

0.3 of inclination increases from 0 to 60 , the heat transfer coef-

ficient value increases due to increase in swirl.
0.25

0.2
4. Conclusion
0.15
In this paper, experimental study of shell-and-tube heat
0.1 exchanger is conducted to calculate the heat transfer coeffi-
cient, LMTD, Nusselt number, and pressure drop at differ-
0.05 ent Reynolds numbers (3031516). It is concluded that the
increase in Reynolds number has a significant impact on dif-
0 ferent parameters of shell-and-tube type heat exchanger. The
0 500 1000 1500 2000
major findings are summarized as follows.
Re

Test run 1: inlet uid temp. at 70

(i) The heat transfer coefficient increases with increase
Test run 2: inlet uid temp. at 80 in Reynolds number in shell-and-tube heat exchanger
Figure 7: Variation of with Reynolds number (for hot water inlet). for both hot fluid inlet and cold fluid inlet.
(ii) The Nusselt number increases with increase in Reyn-
20000 olds number in shell-and-tube heat exchanger for
both hot fluid inlet and cold fluid inlet.
(iii) The value of LMTD increases with increase in Reyn-
15000 olds number from 303 to 1516.
P (N/m2 )

(iv) The value of temperature constants and decreased

with increase in Reynolds number.
10000
(v) The value of pressure drop gradually increases with
increase in Reynolds number.
5000

Nomenclature
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 : Specific heat of water (J/kg K)
Re : Diameter of adapter (m)
: Diameter of cover pipe (m)
Pressure drop
: Diameter of inner pipe (m)
Figure 8: Variation of total pressure drop versus Reynolds number
: Heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K)
for 0 baffle orientations.
: Thermal conductivity of water (W/m K)
4000
: Centre distance between two adapters
: Length of cover pipe (m)
: Length of inner pipe (m)
: Mass flow rate (kg/s)
Re: Reynolds number
3500 : Velocity of water (m/s)
h (W/m2 K)

: Centre distance between two baffles

: Density of water (kg/m3 )
: Viscosity of water (N s/m2 )
3000 : Pressure drop (N/m2 )
: Change in temperature ( C)
: Logarithmic mean temperature difference
: Inclination angle
: Ratio of adapter pitch to cover pipe
2500
0 500 1000 1500 internal diameter
: Ratio of length to internal diameter of
h ( without baffles) h ( baffles at 30 ) cover pipe
h (baffles at 0 ) h (baffles at 60 ) : Ratio of length to internal diameter of
Figure 9: Variation of heat transfer coefficient versus Reynolds inner pipe
number for different baffle orientation. : Ratio of length of cover pipe to baffle pitch.
ISRN Chemical Engineering 5

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