Full Model Simulation of Shellside Thermal Augmentation of Small Heat Exchanger with Two Tube Passes

A small heat exchanger with segmental baffles and two tube passes was built and experimented to investigate the shellside heat transfer enhancement in our previous research. In the present paper, the full numerical model is constructed for the experimented heat exchanger of two tube passes with the commercial software ANSYS Fluent, where the computation domain consists of not only the fluids on the shell and tube sides but also the solids of baffles and tubes. The conjugated heat transfer between the hot and cold fluids through tubes is modeled. To check the prediction precision of current full model, the computed fluid outlet temperature and heat transfer rate are compared with experimental counterparts. With current full model, the effects of baffle number on the performances of heat transfer and flow resistance are studied, and the discussions are conducted with the scalar contours and velocity vectors. The current research could be used for the industrial application of small segmental baffle heat exchangers with multiple tube passes.