Project

Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchanger Thermal & Flow Analysis

A CFD-based thermal and flow analysis of a shell-and-tube exhaust-gas/water heat exchanger — quantifying pressure drop and heat-transfer performance from ANSYS Fluent simulation results and checking them against the design target.

Thermal Systems & Product Development

ANSYS Fluent static-temperature contour on a cutaway shell-and-tube heat exchanger, hot exhaust-gas inlet shown in red

Tools Used

ANSYS Fluent, ANSYS ICEM CFD

Service Category

Thermal Systems & Product Development

Project Type

Shell-and-tube heat exchanger — CFD thermal & flow performance analysis

Case Study

Challenge

A shell-and-tube heat exchanger — 612 tubes carrying 300°C exhaust gas, water on the shell side at 60°C, three segmental baffles driving shell-side crossflow — needed its thermal performance and exhaust-side pressure drop quantified against a roughly 300 Pa design target before the design could be finalized.

Approach

GreenBIMSource analyzed the exchanger's ANSYS Fluent CFD results — a symmetric half-domain model with 612 tubes (18.8/25.4 mm ID/OD, 1.5 m long), a 1.0 m shell, k–ω SST turbulence, and an ICEM CFD mesh of roughly 78.9 million elements — working through the temperature, velocity, and pressure fields, checking the solution's convergence against its residual history, and calculating the exhaust-side pressure drop and overall heat-transfer rate from the Fluent output.

Result

The analysis found a 575 Pa pressure drop across the tubes — notably above the roughly 300 Pa design target — and a heat-transfer rate of approximately 135 kW for the modeled half-domain, around 270 kW for the full exchanger. Based on the non-uniform gas-outlet temperature field, GreenBIMSource also recommended a mass-weighted outlet temperature calculation and a mesh-independence and energy-balance check to fully validate these figures before they're locked into the design.

Deliverables

CFD thermal & flow performance analysis — ANSYS Fluent
Pressure-drop and heat-transfer-rate calculations
Convergence and residual-history review
Engineering recommendations for further validation

CFD Results

Symmetric half-domain CAD geometry of a shell-and-tube heat exchanger — Symmetric half-domain geometry of the shell-and-tube heat exchanger as modeled.

ANSYS ICEM CFD tetrahedral mesh across the shell-side, tube-side, and solid body zones of a heat exchanger — Overall mesh across the shell-side, tube-side, and solid-body zones.

ANSYS Fluent static-temperature contour on a shell-and-tube heat exchanger tube bundle — Static-temperature contour on the tube bundle, showing non-uniform heating across rows.

ANSYS Fluent gas velocity vectors at the tube entrance of a heat exchanger showing a recirculation zone — Gas velocity vectors at the tube entrance — a recirculation zone is visible.

ANSYS Fluent total-pressure contour on the symmetry plane of a shell-and-tube heat exchanger — Total-pressure contour on the symmetry plane, used to calculate the exhaust-side pressure drop.

ANSYS Fluent scaled residual convergence plot for continuity, velocity, energy, k, and omega — Scaled residual history for continuity, velocity, energy, k, and omega.

Have a Thermal Systems & Product Development project to discuss?

Send us your drawings, model, or project brief and we'll get back to you with scope and turnaround.

Discuss Your Project