Impact of Baffle Spaces and Baffle Numbers on Pressure Drop and Heat Transfer in a Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger: A CFD Analysis

Abstract

Numerical investigation using commercial software ANSYS FLUENT has been conducted on a single pass shell and single pass tube heat exchanger with a different number of segmental baffles and baffle spacing. The optimization of a shell and tube heat exchanger varies with the achieved heat transfer rate with a negligible amount of power consumption. The heat transfer rate becomes higher at a certain limit of baffle space and baffle number. However, in consequence, the pressure loss also increases with the increase of heat transfer rate. The main motive of this investigation is to seek out the impact of pressure drop to minimize power consumption as well as to optimize the heat transfer rate.