Numerical investigation of tubeside maldistribution in shell-and-tube heat exchangers

Shell-and-tube heat exchangers (STHE) are widely used in the process and energy industry. Maldistribution and the often resulting fouling in these STHE cause additional energy consumption and lower production throughput. Increased average wall shear stress, compared to that of the maldistributed cas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Heat and mass transfer 2024-05, Vol.60 (5), p.851-859
Main Authors: Schab, Richard, Kutschabsky, Alexander, Unz, Simon, Beckmann, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Computational fluid dynamics
Energy consumption
Engineering
Engineering Thermodynamics
Flow distribution
Flow velocity
Fouling
Heat and Mass Transfer
Heat exchangers
Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering
Mathematical models
Original Article
Parameter sensitivity
Sensitivity analysis
Shear stress
Thermodynamics
Tube heat exchangers
Tubes
Wall shear stresses
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Summary:Shell-and-tube heat exchangers (STHE) are widely used in the process and energy industry. Maldistribution and the often resulting fouling in these STHE cause additional energy consumption and lower production throughput. Increased average wall shear stress, compared to that of the maldistributed case inside the tubes is expected to mitigate fouling. This can be achieved by a uniform distribution into the tubes. Field and laboratory data suggest that common crude oil fouling is profoundly mitigated above 10 Pa and is significantly reduced above a wall shear stress of 15 Pa [ 1 ]. Many STHE already have lower design shear stresses than those mentioned. Therefore, if maldistribution takes place, tubes with less flow velocity will have even more fouling. To investigate tubeside flow maldistribution, a parametric STHE model is studied with computational fluid dynamics (CFD). At first, a comparison between the standard k- ϵ -model and the new standard SST-model is performed to check if SST could provide improved simulation results. Afterward, a range of geometrical parameters will be investigated to find influencing quantities of maldistribution. The resulting velocity distributions are visualized and evaluated by using different statistical approaches. At least, a sensitivity analysis will be done to show how each parameter influences the tubeside flow distribution in STHE.
ISSN:0947-7411
1432-1181
DOI:10.1007/s00231-023-03385-5