Numerical studies on combined multiple shell-pass shell- and-tube heat exchanger with helical baffles

In the present study, flow and heat transfer characteristics of a novel combined multiple shell-pass shell- and-tube heat exchangers with continuous helical baffles were studied by Computation Fluid Dynamic (CFD) method. The results indicated that, under same mass flow rate and heat transfer rate, the pressure drop of the novel heat exchanger is 14.6% lower than the conventional segmental baffled heat exchanger; the heat transfer coefficient under unit pressure drop was applied to evaluate the comprehensive performance of shell- and-tube heat exchangers and the novel heat exchanger has 10.8% increase than the heat exchanger with segmental baffles.