CFD analysis of shell and tube heat exchanger with different baffle orientation and baffle cut

This paper emphasizes on the effects of certain baffle orientation and baffle cut for a simple shell and tube heat exchanger. As heat being transferred between separate medium might contribute some heat loss to the surroundings resulting in an ineffective heat transfer, this calls for the remedy to minimize the loss and improve heat transfer characteristics. This is where baffle orientation and baffle cut plays its role and improves the heat transfer phenomena. The analysis constitutes of employing baffles (or flow directing or obstructing vanes or panels) at a particular distance inside a shell and tube type heat exchanger. Two categories of orientation includes horizontal as well as vertical orientation of baffles. Moreover, the baffle cut undergoes some variation for proper optimization. The process involves the utilization of a commercial CFD software package FLUENT. The geometry consists of seven tubes and ten baffles within the shell where water is considered as the working substance and only shell side flow characteristics is observed. During the solver setup, Realizable k-epsilon (2-eqn) is utilized and boundary conditions at the inlet, outlet and wall are properly assigned as per required for this study. After examining the result it is noticed that pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient both decreases as the baffle cut is increased for a particular Reynolds number, but as the Reynolds number is increased keeping the baffle cut constant, pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient both increases. Last but not the least the above findings can be used for further study and there is also scopes for some improvement of the current study.