Geometrical Parametric Analysis of Flow and Heat Transfer in the Shell Side of a Spiral-Wound Heat Exchanger

Abstract

The spiral-wound heat exchangers are widely used in chemical industrial applications, but the mechanism of flow and heat transfer in shell side has not been clarified yet. A three-dimensional model is developed based on the FLUENT software in this study, with emphasis on quantifying the effects of the main geometry parameters, such as the number of tube bundles, the number of tube layers, the thickness of space bars, the number of tubes per circle in the first layer, the tube external diameter, the central cylinder diameter, and the tube pitch in the first layer, on the flow and heat transfer. Based on the numerical simulation results, the Taguchi method is used to estimate the effect of these geometrical factors on flow and heat transfer and the contribution rate of every factor is obtained. Meanwhile, the multivariate correlation is developed by MATLAB software to calculate the Nusselt number and friction factor in the shell side.