NUMERICAL STUDY ON THERMO-HYDRAULIC PERFORMANCE IN THE SHELL SIDE OF SPIRAL-WOUND HEAT EXCHANGER

The spiral-wound heat exchangers are widely used in industrial applications, but the mechanism of flow and heat transfer in shell side has not been clarified yet. A three-dimensional model is developed based on the FLUENT software in this study, with emphasis on quantifying the effects of the main geometry parameters, such as the tube number per circle in the first layer, the tube external diameter, the central cylinder diameter and the tube pitch, on the flow and heat transfer are discussed respectively. It is found that as the tube number per circle in the first layer increases, the Nusselt number increases and the pressure loss per unit length increases first and then decreases and the similar trend is obtained as the central cylinder diameter increases. The Nusselt number and pressure loss both increase with the increase of tube external diameter. As the tube pitch increases, the Nusselt number and the pressure loss both decreases.