Transient behaviour of shell and tube heat exchangers

Based on the dispersion model rather than on the conventional pluf‐flow model, a method of predicting the transient behaviour of parallel and counterflow heat exchangers is developed, whereby the effects of shell‐side flow maldistribution and the finite heat capacities of both fluids, tube bundle and shell are considered. The final solution has been obtained by numerical inversion of the Laplace transform, to determine the transient responses to arbitrary inlet temperature variations. The experiment was carried out in a one pass tube heat exchanger. The comparison between therotical and experimental results is presented and the feasibility of this method is discussed.