Numerical study on turbulent heat transfer performance of a new compound parallel flow shell and tube heat exchanger with longitudinal vortex generator

A new compound parallel flow STHX with CPB and LVG is proposed. Firstly, the turbulent thermal performance and flow structure of STHX with five different configurations of LVG are compared numerically. The effect of serrate, hole and layout on thermal-hydraulic performance is discussed. Secondly, the thermal performance of the selected configuration is further investigated using RSM analysis. The effect of geometric parameters on thermal-hydraulic performance is illustrated. Finally, the obtained results are compared with those of the previous configurations. The results show that the baseline configuration has the best thermal performance; the increase of the LVG height and LVG attack angle can improve the heat transfer performance and overall thermal-hydraulic performance. The LVG pitch has a complicate effect on the thermal performance. The LVG may have a broader application prospect in terms of thermal-hydraulic performance and manufacturing cost compared with the sinusoidal wavy tape and wire coil.