Numerical investigation of helical bafes heat exchanger with different

Prandtl number uids

Xiaoming Xiao
a
, Luhong Zhang
a,
, Xingang Li
a,b
, Bing Jiang
a,b
, Xiaoling Yang
a
, Youmei Xia
a
a
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, PR China
b
National Engineering Research Center for Distillation Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, PR China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 22 September 2011
Received in revised form 14 May 2012
Accepted 25 March 2013
Available online 3 May 2013
Keywords:
Heat transfer
Helical bafes
Prandtl number
Numerical analysis
Simulation
Optimisation
a b s t r a c t
The numerical simulations for helical bafes heat exchanger with different Prandtl number (Pr) uids and
the comparison for helical bafes heat exchangers with different helical tilt angle (b) were presented in
this paper. The results reveal that, the helical bafes are used to direct the shell side uid ow spirally
across the tubes, and the guide function will weaken when large Pr uids involved. The heat transfer coef-
cient per unit length pressure drop decreases with the increase of heat exchanger length, and for heat
exchangers with same length, the heat transfer coefcient per unit pressure drop increases with the
increase of b. By comparing heat exchangers with same required heat transfer capacity, heat exchanger
contained water as the shell side uid achieves the best heat transfer performance when b is at 40, and
for shell side uid with big Pr, the small angle scheme is the optimal selection.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In the past few decades, shell and tube exchangers carry enor-
mous importance in the oil rening, power generation, offshore
heat recovery and so on [1,2]. Among all the assemblies in the heat
exchanger, bafe plays a signicant role since it is used to direct
the shell side uid ow across the tube bundle in a suitable man-
ner to improve heat transfer and maintain a reasonable pressure
drop across the exchanger. Take the most commonly used segmen-
tal bafes for an example, the heat transfer is improved as the baf-
es guide the shell side uid to ow upward and downwards
between the tube bundle, which enhances the turbulence intensity
and the local mixing [3]. However, the segmental bafes have
some inherent defects since the structure limitations: (1) fouling
formed in the stagnation zone near the shell wall and the rear of
bafe plates; (2) large pressure drop results from bafes impeding
to the uid ow and the ow separation near the bafe edge; (3)
signicant bypass streams and leakage streams due to manufactur-
ing tolerances; (4) short operational lifetime as a result of ow-
induced tube vibration [4,5].
To minimize the shortcomings of shell and tube heat exchang-
ers with traditional segmental bafes, many strategies have been
attempted [68]. In the end of 1980th, helical bafes heat
exchangers was rstly invented in Czechoslovakia [9]. Instead of
perpendicularly inserting the bafes into the shell, the pseudo-cir-
cular shaped bafe plates are mounted in the shell one by one in a
certain angle respect to axis. The bafes could be overlapped or
continuously adjacent, and the value of bafes tilt angle (b) varies
as the change of operation conditions [10,11]. Compare to the tra-
ditional segmental bafes, the application of helical bafes greatly
reduces the probability of fouling and ow-induced tube vibration,
as well as decreases the proportions of bypass streams and leakage
streams in the total streams, moreover, a small increase for the
heat transfer rate and a big decrease for the pressure drop will
be achieved [12].
The combination of experimental study and numerical simula-
tion study is the main research method for the helical bafes stud-
ies so far, most of those researches focused on the ow behaviors in
the shell side, the effect of helical tilt angle on the heat transfer, the
heat transfer coefcient correlation and so forth [1315]. But in
previous studies, some conclusions may not be practical or rigor-
ous. For example, the heat transfer coefcient per unit pressure
drop was considered as the heat transfer efciency evaluation cri-
terion for heat exchangers, and the comparison was always based
on the same heat transfer areas or the same Reynolds number (Re)
for different heat exchangers. However, in heat exchanger design,
the heat exchanger size and the heat exchanger area are always
unknown, while the volumetric ow rate, the inlet temperature
for each working mediums and the required heat transfer capacity
are always known and set as inputs; plus, for helical bafes heat
exchanger, the Re changes a lot with the change of b under the
0017-9310/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2013.04.001

Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 22 27400199.

E-mail addresses: xig-xiao@163.com (X. Xiao), zhanglvh@tju.edu.cn (L. Zhang).
International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 63 (2013) 434444
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same shell side volumetric ow rate. Thus, compared to the com-
parison of heat exchangers with same Re or same heat transfer
area, the comparison of heat exchangers with same required heat
transfer capacity seems to be more practical. Moreover, in previous
publications, no early research had been focus on the inuence of
the uid characteristic on the design of helical bafes heat exchan-
ger yet. For instance, in some published literatures, 40 was the
optimal bafes tilt angle since the boundary layer thickness on
the tube surface was the thinnest [4,16], but only water in turbu-
lent state was tested in the original experiments and no further re-
search predicted that the conclusion would be applied to other
uids with different Prandtl number (Pr) or in different ow state.
The objective of this paper is to study the heat transfer perfor-
mance for uids with different Pr in the shell side of helical bafes
heat exchanger. The value of Pr ranges from 5 to 15,000 and the
helical bafes tilt angle varies from 10 to 50. Firstly, the research
studied the bafes inuence on the velocity eld and the pressure
eld; Secondly, since the length of heat exchangers with different
helical bafes tilt angle were different in order to providing the
same heat transfer capacity, we explored the effect of heat exchan-
ger length on the heat transfer performance in the next section; Fi-
nally the paper studied the heat transfer performance for uids
with different Pr. Though turbulent ow was desired for most heat
transfer processes, the laminar ow was also studied since the Re
was quite small for some simulation runs. The numerical approach
was employed as the primary research method as the experiment
result validation for the simulation result was conducted ahead of
time.
2. CFD modeling
2.1. Physical modeling
The geometry was drawn and meshed by using GAMBIT 2.3.16
software as well as Fluent 3.2 software. The physical model was a
simplied heat exchanger model with 4 4 tubes scheme. Though
without nozzles, helical bafes with nine types of angles, six
groups of helical bafe cycle unit numbers (stand for different heat
transfer lengths), and a segmental bafe heat exchanger for ow
pattern comparison were included in the model. The detailed
geometry parameters are listed in Table 1 and a sample of which
with 25 bafes tilt angle and six bafe cycle units is shown in
Fig. 1. Two things should be noted for the physical model. First,
the effective tube length is equal to the bafes spacing value mul-
tiplies by the bafe cycle unit number. Take the heat exchanger
with 10 bafes tilt angle for example, when bafe cycle unit num-
ber was designed to be 2, the tube effective length was equal to
37.12 mm, which is the double of the bafes spacing. Second, the
numbers with asterisk in Table 1 indicate that they are exclusive
geometry parameters for heat exchanger with segmental bafes.
2.2. Governing equations and boundary conditions
The commercial CFD code Fluent 6.3 was used to perform the
simulation. Since the Re number of uid in this article was in the
range from dozens to hundreds of thousands, the simulations were
solved employing the laminar ow model and the renormalization
group (RNG) ke model. Choosing (RNG) ke model as the turbu-
lence model was because it involved the effect of swirl on turbu-
lence, which could enhance the simulation accuracy of swirling
existed in the heat exchanger [17]; plus, the (RNG) ke model
had already gained excellent utilization in some published articles
about heat exchanger simulation [1820]. The governing equations
for continuity, momentum, energy, k and e for the uid region are
as follows:
Continuity:
@
@x
i
qu
i
0 1
Momentum:
@
@x
i
qu
i
u
k

@
@x
i
l
@u
k
@x
i

@P
@x
k
2
Energy:
@
@x
i
qu
i
t
@
@x
i
k
C
p
@t
@x
i

3
Turbulent kinetic energy:
@
@t
qk
@
@x
i
qku
i

@
@x
j
a
k
l
eff
@k
@x
j

G
k
qe 4
Turbulent dissipation energy:
@
@t
qe
@
@x
i
qeu
i

@
@x
j
a
e
l
eff
@e
@x
j

C

1e
e
k
G
k
C
2e
q
e
2
k
5
Nomenclature
Latin letters
A heat transfer area, m
2
B bafes spacing, m
Cp specic heat, J/kg K
D inside diameter of shell, m
d tube outside diameter, m
d
e
equivalent diameter, m
K total heat transfer coefcient, W/m
2
K
L effective length of tube, m
m mass ow rate, kg/s
V volumetric ow rate, m
3
/h
N number of tubes
p tube pitch, m
Pe Peclet number
Pr Prandtl number
q volumetric ow rate, m
3
/h
Re Reynolds number
S cross area, m
2
T temperature, C
u mean velocity, m/s
Greek letters
a shell side heat transfer coefcient, W/m
2
K
b helical bafes tilt angle,
DP pressure drop, Pa
DT
m
logarithmic mean temperature difference,
k thermal conductivity, W/m K
l dynamic viscosity, N s/m
2
q uid density, kg/m
3
Subscripts
in inlet
out outlet
s shell side
t tube side
w wall
X. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 63 (2013) 434444 435
where
l
eff
l l
t
; l
t
qC
l
k
2
e
; C

1e
C
1e

g1 g=g
0

1 bg
3
6
g 2E
ij
E
ij

1=2
k
e
; E
ij

1
2
@u
i
@x
j

@u
j
@x
i

7
The coefcients for the (RNG) ke model were assigned as the de-
fault values in Fluent 6.3.
The ow was taken as steady, incompressible one. Non-slip
boundary condition was applied on all the solid surfaces within
the computational domain and the standard wall function was
adopted near the wall and the range of the dimensionless length
x
+
or y
+
was 10 < x
+
(y
+
) < 100. The velocity inlet was served as
the shell side inlet boundary with a constant total temperature
designed at 343.15 K, and pressure-outlet boundary condition
was applied on the shell outlet with back total temperature set
as constant numbers, the numbers were specic values varied with
simulation cases. The temperatures of tube walls were set as
328.15 K, and other solid surfaces were set as adiabatic. Five kinds
of uids with different Pr were utilized to simulate, the thermo
physical properties of those uids are listed in Table 2.
2.3. Mesh selection and independency validation
Mesh generation was performed using Gambit. The shell volume
was meshed using unstructured tetragonal-hybrid elements and
the size function in Gambit was utilized to improve the calculation
accuracy in the regions adjacent to the tubes as seen in Fig. 2, The
mesh size varied from 1,800,000 to 10,000,000 with the change of
simulation case, and the smallest mesh size reached 2.2 10
10
m
3
.
As seen in Table 3, the grid independence tests were carried out
with adopting three different mesh size groups for the case with
25 bafes tilt angle and six bafe cycle units. The differences be-
tween the latter two groups were less than 3% in pressure drop as
well as the temperature. Considering, both the calculating time and
solution precisions, the second mesh system was taken for the
physical model.
2.4. Numerical method
The governing equations along with the boundary conditions
were iteratively solved by the nite volume method using SIMPLE
pressurevelocity coupling algorithm [21,22]. The QUICK scheme
with three-order precision was utilized for convective formulation
and the SIMPLE algorithm was for pressure-velocity coupling.
The convergence criteria were 10
8
for energy and 10
5
for all
other equations. The calculations were carried in a DELL tower
workstation with two Quad Core Intel

Xeon

5590 3.33 GHz CPUs

Table 1
Detailed geometry parameter for simulated heat exchangers.
Parameters Unit Value
Inside diameter of shell mm 150
Tube outside diameter mm 19
Effective length of tube mm 37.122528.09, 600

Number of tubes 16
Tube layout pattern 90
Tube pass 1
Tube pitch mm 25
Bafe cycle unit number 2,4,6,8,10
Bafes tilt angle 0

,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50
Bafe spacing mm 18.56252.81, 60

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of heat exchangers with helical bafes: (a) tube bundles arrangement in the shell side; (b) side view of heat exchanger with parameters denition.
Table 2
Thermo physical properties of the simulated materials.
Material name Density (kg/m
3
) Specic heat capacity (J/kg K) Thermal conductivity (W/m K) Viscosity (kg/Pa s) Pr
Water liquid 998.20 4182.00 0.600 0.00100 6.99
Gasoil liquid 830.00 2050.00 0.140 0.00332 50.41
Ethylene glycol 1111.40 2415.00 0.252 0.01570 150.46
Glycerin 1259.90 2427.00 0.286 0.79900 6780.33
Engine oil 889.00 1845.00 0.145 1.06000 13487.59
436 X. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 63 (2013) 434444
and 48 GB memory. Due to the different mesh numbers, each sim-
ulation case took approximately 210 h to converge.
2.5. Experiment setup and model validation
In order to check the simulation model validity, a pilot-scale
helical bafes heat exchanger experiment was carried out. The line
diagramof the experiment setup is shown in Fig. 3. The experiment
system contained the test helical bafes heat exchanger, the rela-
tive devices and the utilities. Hot water and cold water were used
as the test uids, the cold water ran through the tube side of the
test heat exchanger and the hot water owed through the shell
side.
The main geometric parameters for the test heat exchanger are
presented in Table 4. To investigate the heat transfer performance
in the shell side of the test heat exchanger, several groups of exper-
iments were carried out. In each run, the volumetric ow rate and
the inlet temperature of each uid were set xed as inputs, the
outlet temperature and the pressure drop of the shell side and tube
side were recorded. Different operation conditions were obtained
by varying volumetric ow rate of the inlets. The volumetric ow
rates in the shell side and tube side ranged from 50 m
3
/h to
150 m
3
/h and 50 m
3
/h to 90 m
3
/h respectively. The inlet tempera-
tures of shell side and tube side were controlled at 70 C and 40 C.
The armored pt100 temperature sensors with a precision of
0.2 C were installed to measure the hot and cold water tempera-
tures at the inlet/outlet of the heat exchanger. The pressure drop
of water owing through the test heat exchanger was measured
by pressure transmitters (Rosemount

3051S) with the accuracy

of 0.1% at a range 01.0 MPa. The volumetric ow rates for uids
in the shell side and tube side were measured by two vortex ow-
meters (KROHNE

OPTISWIRL 4070) with precisions of 0.75% of

0250 m
3
/h. The output signal for all measuring instruments were
420 mA and a data acquisition unit (WP-R302C type color screen
paperless recorder) was used for data collecting and displaying.
The experiment runs were accepted for data recording only if the
steady state conditions were veried and the deviation between
heat loads from hot side and cold side were calculated less than
10%. The time consumption for each run was probably 15 min.
The simulation model with 25 bafes tilt angle and six bafe
cycle units as shown in Fig. 1 was employed to the model valida-
tion. Though the scale of the simulation model and the experiment
heat exchanger was different, the ow pattern and the heat
Fig. 2. Front view of meshed heat exchanger head.
Table 3
Summary of grid independence checks for simulation.
Item Coarse grid Medium grid Fine grid
Nodes number 878192 1683365 3830694
DP, kPa 10.24 8.96 8.69
T
s,out
, C 42.98 42.90 42.92
Fig. 3. Line diagram of the experiment setup: 1 hot water tank; 11 cold water tank; 2, 12 pump; 3, 13 owmeter; 4,7,14,17 pressure indicator; 5,8,15,16
temperature indicator; 6 test heat exchanger with helical bafes; 9 heat exchanger for heating; 10 heating steam inlet; 18 heat exchanger for cooling; 19 cooling
water inlet; 20 cooling water outlet.
Table 4
Main geometric parameters of the experiment setup.
Parameters Unit Value
TEMA type BEU
Inside diameter of shell mm 500
Tube outside diameter mm 19
Tube inside diameter mm 15
Effective length of tube mm 6000
Number of tubes 208
Tube layout pattern 90
Tube pass 2
Tube pitch mm 25
Inlet nozzle diameter mm 150
Outlet nozzle diameter mm 150
Bafes tilt angle 25
Bafe spacing mm 638.8
X. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 63 (2013) 434444 437
transfer process, as well as the mathematical model were similar
between them. As the increase of the shell side uid velocity, the
comparison of total heat transfer coefcient and overall shell side
pressure drop between the experimental results and simulated re-
sults in shell side were provided in Figs. 4 and 5. In these evalua-
tions, the main aim was to compare the trends, as can be seen,
the trends for both results were similar, which indicated the reli-
ability of the simulation model and the mesh choosing.
2.6. Parameter denition
The denitions of Reynolds number in the shell side are as
follows:
Re
s

q
s
d
e
u
s
l
s
8
where d
e
is the equivalent diameter derived from the tube outside
diameter d, for square tube layout, d
e
is dened as in Eq. (9) [7]:
d
e

4p
2
pd
2
pd
9
The value of the uid density q
s
and the dynamic viscosity l
s
are
determined by the average temperature of the shell side uid. u
s
is the mean velocity of uid in the shell side dened by
u
s

q
s
qS
10
S
1
2
BD 1
d
p

11
where S is the cross area at the shell centerline [2325], D is inside
diameter of shell and p is tube pitch, B stands for bafes spacing,
which is derived from helical bafes tilt angle b and shell inside
diameter D as shown in Eq. (12):
B

2
p
Dtanb 12
The total heat transfer coefcient are dened by the following
equations:
K
Q
ADT
m
13
A N pdL 14
DT
m

DT
max
DT
min

lnDT
max
=DT
min

15
DT
max
maxT
w
T
s;in
; T
w
T
s;out
16
DT
min
minT
w
T
s;in
; T
w
T
s;out
17
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Bafes effect on velocity eld in the heat exchanger with
segmental and helical bafes
Fig. 6a and b illustrate the uid ow in the shell side of heat ex-
changer with segmental and helical bafes. As seen in Fig. 6a, in
the heat exchanger with segmental bafes, the bafes in the shell
side work as obstacles which divide the original axial ow into
cross ow, back ow and some vortex. In the zones near the edge
of bafes, the direction of velocity vector changes largely as the
uid has to climb over bafes. Compared to the velocities of the
main crossow streams, the uid velocities near the shell wall sur-
face and at the corner of bafes are rather small, where the stagna-
tion ow generated. The turbulence and local mixing result from
the segmental bafes are positive to heat transfer but rather nega-
tive to forming huge pressure loss as a sudden pressure change
forms at each bafe section.
On the contrary, the function of helical bafes is used to form-
ing a spiral uid ow passage which forces the uid to ow
through the channels between bafes as depicted in the Fig. 6b.
No obvious changes could be found for the direction and the mag-
nitude of velocity vector at the near-bafe edge areas, and the uni-
formity of the velocity distribution with helical bafes are much
better than that with segmental bafes. Since the shell side uid
in the helical bafes heat exchanger keeps moving forward spirally
as the cross plug ow with little back ow or vortex, the helical
bafes have a similar heat transfer effect as the segmental bafes.
With the help of less turbulence and local mixing, the pressure
drop could get a much smaller value than that for segmental
bafes.
However, the function of construction spiral channels is not
effective in all situations. Fig. 7 shows the velocity eld under four
different situations. In Fig. 7a and b, water and glycerin were intro-
duced into the shell side of heat exchanger with b at 45, and in
Fig. 7c and d, water and glycerin were introduced into the shell
side of heat exchanger with b at 10. From Fig. 7a and b we can
see, though the ow patterns are similar, the velocity distribution
are different. In Fig. 7a, a relatively uniform velocity distribution is
found within the cross section except the quarter circle region
Fig. 4. Comparison of total heat transfer coefcient between the experimental
results and simulated results.
Fig. 5. Comparison of overall shell side pressure drop between the experimental
results and simulated results.
438 X. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 63 (2013) 434444
where the bafe existed, indicates that the main stream of uid
does pass through the channels formed by the bafes. In Fig. 7b,
the velocity in the centerline region is much bigger than the veloc-
ities in other regions indicates the leakage stream is generated in
the centerline of the heat exchanger. With the change of shell side
uid from water to glycerin, the Re
s
(calculated in Eq. (8)) achieves
a big change from 8000 to 10, and the ow state transits from tur-
bulent ow to laminar ow. The increased wall shear stress in-
duces the increase of the large boundary layers at the tube wall
surface and shell wall surface, which forces the main stream of
the uid in the Fig. 7b to move through the centerline of the heat
exchanger, but not pass through the channels formed by the helical
bafes. In Fig. 7c and d, the proportion of streams pass through the
centerline decreases as the result of the Re varying to 60,000 and
800, respectively where uids are in turbulent state or near turbu-
lent state.
To sum up we can say the function of helical bafes as construc-
tion channels does not work well if the shell uid is in laminar
state. When laminar ow is mainly resulted from the employment
of high viscosity uid, adopting bafes with small b could enhance
turbulence and induce the uid ow through the channels.
3.2. Impacts of heat exchanger length on heat transfer and pressure
drop
Water was used as the simulated medium in this section and
the next section, the helical bafes tilt angle degree varied from
10 to 50 and the heat bafe cycle unit numbers changed from
2 to 12.
As the length of each heat exchanger adopted in the simulation
is different, the unit length pressure drop (DP/L), the total heat
transfer coefcient (K) as well as the heat transfer coefcient per
unit length pressure drop [K/(DP/L)] are studied in order to elimi-
nate the length interference effect.
Fig. 8 illustrates the unit length pressure drop (DP/L) against the
heat exchanger length. As the increase of heat exchanger length,
the proportion of uid in the steady ow state in the middle sec-
tion of the heat exchanger gets increased, and the negative impacts
Fig. 6. Stream lines in the shell side for heat exchanger with segmental and helical bafes.
X. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 63 (2013) 434444 439
of inlet and outlet on the pressure drop become relatively smaller.
Consequently, as shown in Fig. 8, the DP/L decreases with the in-
crease of heat exchanger length for all angle schemes. Besides,
for heat exchanger with same length, DP/L for small b scheme is
apparently bigger than that for big b scheme, this is because the
big increase of kinetic energy loss results from the increase of
velocity and the big increase of drag and friction resistance loss
due to the increase of bafe numbers in the small angle scheme.
The variation trend of the total heat transfer coefcient along
heat exchanger length is presented in Fig. 9. It can be clearly ob-
served that K decreases with the increase of heat exchanger length
for all angle schemes. The reason for the falling trend for the curves
is because the temperature difference between the shell and tube
side uids decreases with the increase of heat exchanger length,
which reduces the local driving force for heat transfer results in
the decrease of heat transfer coefcient. Apart from this major phe-
nomenon, another feature can be noted from Fig. 9: Under the
same heat exchanger length, the K for the small b scheme is bigger
than that for the big b scheme in general, but the K for b = 35 is
bigger than that for b = 20, b = 25 and b = 30. For example, when
heat exchanger length = 1000 mm, the K for b = 10 increases 66.7%
than that for b = 50, and the K for b = 35 is 5.5%, 8.2%, 3.9% bigger
than that for b = 20, b = 25 and b = 30 respectively. The explana-
tion for this character is as follows: The uid turbulence intensity
and the velocity boundary layer on the tube surface are the two
main factors impact the heat transfer in the shell side, big turbu-
lence intensity and thin velocity boundary layer thickness in the
shell side will lead to big K. With the increase of b, the uid turbu-
Fig. 7. Velocity vectors in the longitudinal section plane and velocity contours in the cross section plane for heat exchanger with helical bafes (q
s
= 5 m
3
/h): (a) b = 45,
water; (b) b = 45, glycerin; (c) b = 10, water; (d) b = 10, glycerin.
440 X. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 63 (2013) 434444
lence intensity has less impact on the K derived from the reduction
of velocity, while the effect of velocity boundary layer grows
respectively, and the thickness of which reaches the minimum va-
lue at b = 40 [12,13]. So when the tilt angle grows, the K declines
in general as a result of the decrease of uid turbulence intensity,
and the K for b = 35 is bigger than some smaller angle schemes
since the thinner velocity boundary layer thickness.
In Fig. 10, the heat transfer coefcient per unit length pressure
drop against the heat exchanger length is presented. First, we can
see that the [K/(DP/L)] decreases with the increase of the heat
exchanger for all angle schemes. Though both present the decline
trend as shown in Figs. 8 and 9, the numerator of [K/(DP/L)] is
falling faster than the denominator leads to the downward trend
for the curves presented in Fig. 10. Secondly, under the same heat
exchanger length, [K/(DP/L)] gets bigger as the increase of b. The
phenomenon is different from the previous reports that K/DP
reaches the largest value when the bafes tilt angle is in the range
of 35 to 45 [13,16]. In their studies, the comparisons were based
on the same pressure drop or the same Re, while the heat
exchangers in Fig. 10 shared the same shell side ow rate and
the comparison was based on the same heat exchanger length.
3.3. Comparison of heat transfer performance with same required heat
transfer capacity
The length of heat exchangers with same heat transfer capacity
can be obtained as shown in Fig. 11. For example, the vertical coor-
dinate values to the intersection points of the vertical line and the
curves represent the length of heat exchangers with helical bafes
in different tilt angle sharing the heat transfer capacity = 18,000 W,
and the exact values are obtained by formula tting and
calculation.
In Fig. 12, the variation of shell side heat exchanger length
against the bafes tilt angle with heat transfer capacity ranging
from 15,000 W to 45,000 W is reported. One can see immediately
for each set of heat transfer capacity, heat exchanger with b at
10 has the shortest heat exchanger length, (i.e., the smallest re-
quired heat transfer area), and the length value increases with
the increase of b when b < 25, then the length value falls with b till
35. When b > 35, the required heat exchanger length returns to
increase with b. If one merely considered the reduction of heat
transfer area, b = 10 seems to be a better choice. The mechanism
of uctuated curves in Fig. 12 is explained as follows: To provide
the same required heat transfer capacity, A heat exchanger with
shortest length must have a bigger K. The heat exchanger length
grows with the increase of b in general is due to the decline of K
in general as discussed in Section 3.2, which is inuenced mainly
by the decrease of uid turbulence intensity. The heat exchanger
length declines when 25 < b < 35 since the K falls in this angle
Fig. 8. Unit length pressure drop versus heat exchanger length for different bafes
tilt angles (water).
Fig. 9. Total heat transfer coefcient versus heat exchanger length for different
bafes tilt angles (water).
Fig. 10. Total heat transfer coefcient per unit length pressure drop versus heat
exchanger length for different bafes tilt angles (water).
Fig. 11. Heat transfer length versus heat transfer capacity (q
s
= 3.2 m
3
/h, water).
X. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 63 (2013) 434444 441
range resulted from the reduction in the velocity boundary layer
thickness on the tube surface.
Fig. 13 depicts the shell side pressure drop versus bafes tilt an-
gle for different heat transfer capacity, the value of the heat trans-
fer area for each heat exchanger is reported in Fig. 12. It is clear in
Fig. 13 that the pressure drop decreases with b for all heat transfer
capacity scheme, and with the increase of b, the decreasing ten-
dency becomes more and more gently, which implies that the ef-
fect of b on the pressure drop is larger for small angle than big
angle. For the case heat transfer capacity = 20,000 W, the pressure
drop decreases 60% when b increases from 10 to 15, but only re-
duces 10% when b varies from 45 to 50. When b is small, the baf-
es spacing is small which limits the channel space to increase the
uid velocity and forces the shell side uid moving in a reinforced
zigzag way leading to severe pressure loss, the uids have to move
longer to cross the heat exchanger derived from large backow or
vortex, consequently result in a big pressure drop. When b gets lar-
ger, the bafes spacing is bigger, and the uid could pass through
the channels formed by the bafes easier but not crash the bafes
themselves. Thus backow and vortex are greatly reduced result in
the small pressure loss when b is large.
In Fig. 14 the heat transfer coefcient per unit pressure drop
versus bafes tilt angle for different heat transfer capacity is
showed and a peculiar behavior is observed that among all heat
exchangers with the same heat transfer capacity, K/DP is largest
when b is at 40.
From Figs. 1214, the following conclusions to uid water could
be reached. Firstly, when considering heat transfer area, DP and
K/DP as the main three objective functions for heat exchangers
selection, best heat transfer performance is obtained when
b = 40. Take the curves present heat transfer capacity = 25,000 W
for example: although the heat transfer area value for b = 10 is
25% smaller than the value for b = 40, DP and K/DP for b = 10 is
25 times and 20 times bigger than that for b = 40 respectively,
similar result can be obtained when comparing b = 15 to b = 40.
For 15 < b < 50, both heat transfer area and DP get the relatively
small values and K/DP gets the maximum value when b = 40. So
when deal with water as the shell side uid, b = 40 is the best
choice. The conclusion could be viewed as a additional revision
to the result of [9].
Secondly, an interesting phenomenon will be found if we go
back to Fig. 12. The heat exchanger length (i.e., the required heat
transfer area) increases 40% and 80%, and decreases 30% when b
changes from 40 to 50, 25 and 10 respectively when heat trans-
fer rate = 15000 W, and for heat transfer rate = 45000 W, the re-
quired heat transfer area increases 35% and 30%, and decreases
45% when b changes from 40 to 50, 25 and 10 respectively. It
has been revealed that the ascendant performance at b = 40 will
be weaken if enhanced the required heat transfer capacity.
3.4. Pr effect on heat transfer performance
As stated in the Table 2, ve kind of uids with different Pr were
utilized to simulate in this section. With the identical volumetric
ow rate and temperature inlet conditions, the uids were intro-
duced into the shell side of heat exchanger with b changed from
10 to 50. To provide the same required heat transfer capac-
ity = 15000 W, the lengths of heat exchangers were different with
each other and the detail of length selection is described in Section
3.3.
In Fig. 15, heat exchanger length against the bafes tilt angle for
uids with different Pr is presented. For water and gasoil liquid, the
heat exchanger length curves are uctuated and the relatively
small value are caught when b = 35. But for curves with bigger
Pr, the curves are monotone increasing.
Fig. 16 depicts the shell side pressure drop versus the bafes tilt
angle for different uids. The obvious decreasing trends are
observed for all curves, and for curves with same b, the pressure
drop increases with the increase of Pr, which mainly result from
Fig. 12. Heat transfer area versus bafes tilt angle for different heat transfer
capacity (q
s
= 3.2 m
3
/h, water).
Fig. 13. Shell side pressure drop versus bafes tilt angle for different heat transfer
capacity (q
s
= 3.2 m
3
/h, water).
Fig. 14. Total heat transfer coefcient per unit pressure drop versus bafes tilt
angle for different heat transfer capacity (q
s
= 3.2 m
3
/h, water).
442 X. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 63 (2013) 434444
the decrease of Reynolds number in the shell side, sharing the
same conclusion as the classical theory [26].
Fig. 17 reports the heat transfer coefcient per unit pressure
drop against the helical tilt angle for different uids. Like the
curves exhibited in Fig. 14, the curve for water (Pr = 6.99) in the
Fig. 17 shows an inverted U-shaped trend and reach its maximum
when b = 40, and K/DP decreases 10% and 15% when b varies to
45 and 50. However, other curves do not share the same curve
trend as the water curve. The curve for gasoil liquid (Pr = 50.41)
keeps increasing from b = 10 to b = 40, then the value of K/DP re-
duces only 4% and 6% when b varies to 45 and 50. The ethylene
glycol curve (Pr = 150.46) ascends gradually to reach a peak when
b = 40, then the value of K/DP changes merely between b = 40 and
b = 45, and increases 2% at b = 50. For the glycerin curve
(Pr = 6780.33) and engine oil curve (Pr = 13487.59), the curves
are monotone increasing. The values of K/DP at b = 50 increase
8% and 7% respectively in contrast with the values at b = 40.
The reason for their difference in curve tendency could be ex-
plained as follows. For uids similar to water, a thinnest boundary
layer is obtained on the tube surface at b = 40, which mostly de-
crease the resistance to heat transmission [1,16]. For uid with
much bigger Pr like glycerin, though the velocity boundary layer
could also approach the minimum value at b = 40, the absolute
thickness is much bigger in this case, which is almost unchanged
since the original big value when b > 40. Therefore, the reduction
for heat transfer rate is smaller than the reduction for pressure
drop results in the continual growth trend of K/DP when b > 40.
From Figs. 1517 we can see, for employing glycol as the shell
side uid, though the pressure drop reduces 70% when b changes
from 10 to 50, the heat exchanger length (i.e., the heat transfer
area) increases 2.3 times, and the net increased amount of heat
transfer area reaches 3 m
2
, besides, only a 2.1 times bigger increase
obtained for K/DP at b = 50 than that at b = 10. Similar results can
be obtained for engine oil from Figs. 1517. So when we
comprehensively consider K/DP, heat transfer area and DP in heat
exchangers selection, heat exchangers with small b is the optimal
choice for shell uid with big Pr. Furthermore, the shell side uid
velocities in this section range from 0.20 m/s to 1.32 m/s with b
change from 50 to 10. For uid with big Pr, the small uid
velocity at big b will lead to laminar ow and is harmful to the heat
transfer; conversely, the relatively big uid velocity at small b will
induce turbulent ow and improve heat transfer. From this point of
view, we can also draw the conclusion that the heat exchanger
with small b should be applied when the shell uid has big Pr.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, the heat transfer and uid ow performance of
heat exchangers with different bafes tilt angles were studied
using the CFD method. After discussed the effect of bafes and heat
exchanger length on heat transfer performance, a new perspective
was provided that the heat transfer performance comparison
among different heat exchangers is better conducted under the
same required heat transfer capacity, then ve different kinds of
uids were involved in the research to reveal the effect of Prandtl
number on heat transfer characteristics. Following are the main
ndings in this article:
1. Despite causing enhancement in turbulence, the segmental baf-
es in heat exchanger work as obstacles to induce huge pres-
sure loss, while the helical bafes in the heat exchanger
channel the uid ow to generate a much smaller pressure
drop. The function of helical bafes as construction channels
will weaken when uid with big Prandtl number involved,
and the heat exchanger with small helical tilt angle could
enhance the turbulence and resume the bafes function.
2. The heat transfer coefcient per unit length pressure drop will
reduce if lengthen the heat exchanger, the heat transfer coef-
cient per unit length pressure drop increases with the increase
of helical tilt bafes under the same heat exchanger length.
Fig. 15. Heat exchanger length versus bafes tilt angle for uids with different Pr
(q
s
= 3.2 m
3
/h, Heat transfer capacity = 15000 W).
Fig. 16. Shell side pressure drop versus bafes tilt angle for uids with different Pr
(q
s
= 3.2 m
3
/h, Heat transfer capacity = 15000 W).
Fig. 17. Total heat transfer coefcient per unit pressure drop versus bafes tilt
angle for uids with different Pr (q
s
= 3.2 m
3
/h, Heat transfer capacity = 15,000 W).
X. Xiao et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 63 (2013) 434444 443
3. When same heat transfer capacity required and adopting water
as the shell side uid, heat exchanger with helical tilt angle at
40 is the best selection, but the superiority will be less obvious
if the required heat capacity increased.
4. Helical bafes tilt angle at 40 is no more the best selection if
the Prandtl number for the shell side uid increases. When Pra-
ndtl number is large enough, heat exchanger with small bafes
tilt angle reveals to be the optimal choice.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported nancially by the Program for Na-
tional Basic Research Program of China (No. 2009CB219905 and
2009CB219907) and Chang Jiang Scholars and Innovative Research
Terms in Universities (No. IRT0936).
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