A novel design of double pipe heat exchanger with innovative turbulator inside the shell-side space

Abstract

An innovative category of turbulators is implemented within the shell of a double pipe heat exchanger (DPHE). The impact of these turbulators on thermal performance and entropy generation is scrutinized through three-dimensional numerical simulations. Maintaining a constant Reynolds number of 500 for the fluid flowing within the shell, the tube's Reynolds number varies within the range of 3000 to 13,000. However, a simulation is performed with a shell-side/tube-side Reynolds number of 750/13000 to investigate the effects of shell-side Reynolds number on heat transfer. To enhance simulation accuracy, the thermophysical features of water, serving as the working fluid, are defined as temperature-dependent functions. Additionally, structured computational grids, featuring polyhedral cells forming the turbulators, are employed to discretize the solution domain. A notable concordance between the simulations' findings and existing experimental correlations is observed. The outcomes indicate that incorporating this turbulator type includes swirl flows, leading to a discernible enhancement in thermal performance. Specifically, for the case with three turbulators at Retube = 3000, the Nusselt number and pressure loss of the fluid flow within the shell show increments of 73% and 87%, respectively, compared to the conventional DPHE. The performance evaluation criterion (PEC) for the shell-side fluid attains a value of 1.41.