Numerical simulation and experimental study on turbulent flow in shell side of shell-and-tube heat exchangers

A three-dimensional, staggered grid, full-implicit consistent control-volume numerical model was presented for the analysis of turbulent fluid flow in shell side of shell-and-tube heat exchangers. The numerical model used the distributed resistance method along with the concept of volumetric porosities, anisotropic surface permeabilities to account for the presence of tubes in the heat exchangers. A modified k-e model was applied and the near wall region was modeled using the wall function approach. The three-dimensional model was validated by comparison with the computed pressure drop distribution of the experimental data obtained from an TEMA-E shell type heat exchanger model. The maximum error between experimental results and numerical simulation results is about 20%. The anisotropic porosities model can simulate the flow characteristics in the shell-side of heat exchangers more effectively than the existing isotropic porosities model.