Analysis of Three-Dimensional Modeling and Simulation of Boiler Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Baffles

Abstract

The goal of this research is to model a three-dimensional steam-producing plant heat exchanger for industrial operations. With a certain tube bundle structure, inlet temperatures and the velocity of the tube and shell sides are used as input factors in the current investigation. The heat transfer study takes hot flue gas inside the tubes and steam on the shell side into account. The model was designed and simulated using ANSYS 2020 fluent for the analysis, which was authenticated by contrasting the output results to actual in-house operating data. According to the computational results, the proposed design allowed for a 9oC rise in shell-side fluid temperature. It has been discovered that installing more baffles in the steam flow channel increases the fluid pressure moving through the heat-exchanger. When compared to the WKX110 model, the velocity along the PMX110 length was more uniform. The velocity distribution indicates that the velocity is particularly high at the baffle turns. This is helpful because the high velocity encourages high convection transfer of heat in the region; therefore, the installation of this baffle improves heat exchange efficacy. The numerical PMX110 and WKX110 findings were validated with experimental data and found to be in good agreement.