Analysis of Heat Transfer Enhancement in Shell and Helical Tube Heat Exchangers Using CFD Modeling

In this paper, CFD modeling of heat transfer enhancement in a shell and helical tube heat exchanger is presented. Hot and cold water have been used as working fluids in the tube side and shell side, respectively. Effects of some important parameters such as hot and cold mass flow rates, baffles and pitch distance, on heat transfer are investigated numerically. The results showed that by increasing the helical tube pitch, heat transfer rate and velocity offset increases. By using the horizontal baffles, the Nusselt number in tube side increases to 8.3%. In a constant tube pitch, by increasing the cold water mass flow rate, the Nusselt number increase up to 11% and increasing the helical pitch increases the 16.9% in Nusselt number through the shell side. The CFD predictions were compared with the experimental data and good agreement was observed.