Flow Characteristics and Heat Transfer Performances of Quadrant Helical Baffle Heat Exchanger with Grooved Joint

Abstract

Helical baffle heat exchanger has a wide application in many industrial fields because of its high efficiency and low resistance. A new structure of the grooved helical baffle is proposed to strengthen the stability between the overlapped baffles during the spiral flow of fluid. Based on this structure, the liquid water was selected as the working medium in the tube side and shell side, the flow field characteristics and heat transfer performances of the quadrant helical baffle heat exchanger are numerically analyzed using software FLUENT 2017. The results show that when the helical angle is large (50°) and the overlapped amount is small (0.5), the comprehensive performance of the heat exchanger is the best. Therefore, the heat exchanger performance can be improved by choosing the appropriate combination of helical angle and overlapped amount. The correlation formula of the shell side heat transfer coefficient with helical angle, overlapped amount and mass flow rate is obtained by means of regression analysis, which can provide a reference for engineering application and optimal design of grooved helical baffle heat exchanger.