Heat transfer and friction characteristics of shell and tube heat exchanger with multi inserted swirl vanes

• Published in: Applied thermal engineering 2016-06, Vol.102, p.1481-1491
• Main Authors: Yehia, Mahmoud Galal, Attia, Ahmed A.A., Abdelatif, Osama Ezzat, Khalil, Essam E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Numerical simulation; Shell and tube heat exchanger; Swirl vane; Turbulence model
• ISSN: 1359-4311
• DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.03.095

•Higher vane swirlers diameter and blade angle give the best results.•Heat transfer increases with increasing number of inserted vane swirlers.•Thermal enhancement factor increase with increasing inserted vane swirlers.•Six inserted vane swirlers gives the maximum heat transfer enhancement.•Obtain a correlation for heat transfer and friction with multi inserted vane swirlers. The effect of friction characteristics of the heat exchanger model when using different number of swirl vanes at different locations along the pipe length to enhance the heat transfer rate will be discussed through a simulation for shell and tube heat exchanger using ANSYS FLUENT CFD techniques. The number of swirl vanes inserted into each tube is three swirl vanes and six swirl vanes distributed along the pipe length with variable diameter (10mm, 15mm, 19mm) and different blade angle (15°, 30°, 45°) for each case. The results show that the numerical results reasonably agree well with the available literature. The case of six swirl vanes with 19mm diameter and 45° blade angle gives the maximum heat transfer enhancement, friction factor, and thermal enhancement factor compared with plain tube case. A correlation for Nusselt number and friction factor is developed.