What are shell and tube heat exchangers used for?

Shell and tube heat exchangers are widely used in applications, which require cooling, or heating large volume of process fluids or gases. There are a number of different types of shell and tube heat exchanger designs to meet several process needs in virtually every industry.

What does the effectiveness of heat exchanger represent?

The effectiveness (ϵ) of a heat exchanger is defined as the ratio of the actual heat transfer to the maximum possible heat transfer.

What is the working principle of shell and tube heat exchanger?

The working of a shell and tube heat exchanger is fairly simple. One fluid flows inside the tubes and the other through the shell. While flowing they exchange the heats which means the cold fluid gains the heat from the hot fluid.

What are the four important parts of shell and tube heat exchanger?

The principal components of shell-and-tube heat exchangers are:

  • Tubes.
  • Tubesheet.
  • Shell and Shell-Side Nozzles.
  • Tube-Side Channel and Nozzles.
  • Baffles.
  • Tie-rods.

What are shell and tube heat exchangers made of?

The shell of a shell and tube heat exchanger is made of pipe or welded metal plates using materials that can withstand extreme temperatures and that are corrosion resistant. The inner shell must be round with a consistent diameter to minimize space between the baffled outer edge and the shell.

What is a tube in tube heat exchanger?

Exergy LLC, tube-in-tube heat exchangers consist of two tubes, an inner and an outer coiled together. This unique, compact design prevents thermal fatigue, increases efficiency and reduces the overall size. It is ideal for high temperature, high pressure and low flow applications.

How efficient are shell and tube heat exchangers?

In case of the industrial heat exchanger presented in the paper, the change of flow directions in shell and tube side has been carried out in the meantime. This change actually solved the problem, and resulted in the designed performance with efficiencies around 95%.

What does NTU represent?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Number of Transfer Units (NTU) Method is used to calculate the rate of heat transfer in heat exchangers (especially counter current exchangers) when there is insufficient information to calculate the Log-Mean Temperature Difference (LMTD).

What is tube and shell side?

One flows through the tubes (the tube side) and the other flows outside the tubes but inside the shell (the shell side). Heat is transferred from one fluid to the other through the tube walls, either from tube side to shell side or vice versa.

Where is shell and tube heat exchanger used?

Following are some key application areas, where shell and tube heat exchangers are used:

  1. Power Generation.
  2. HVAC.
  3. Marine Applications.
  4. Pulp and Paper.
  5. Refrigeration.
  6. Pharmaceuticals.
  7. Air Processing and Compressor Cooling.
  8. Metals and Mining.

What is a shell and tube evaporator?

The main function of Shell & Tube Type Evaporator is to act as a heat exchanger in a vessel form. This is mainly done to cool closed circuit for re-circulating fluid flow. This can be done with the help of refrigerants as a cooling medium. They are efficient in working and having compact design.

Why shell and tube heat exchanger is popular?

Shell and tube heat exchangers are one of the most popular types of heat exchanger because of their flexibility to accommodate a wide range of temperatures and pressures. Shell, or pressure vessel – is where a cooling or heating fluid will flow through to transfer heat or remove heat from a tube bundle.

How many shells are in a shell and tube heat exchanger?

Shell-and-tube heat exchangers can have multiple passes, such as 1-1, 1-2, 1-4, 1-6, and 1-8 exchangers, where the first number denotes the number of the shells and the second number denotes the number of passes. An odd number of tube passes is seldom used except the 1-1 exchanger. A 1-2 shell-and-tube heat exchanger is illustrated in Figure

What kind of heat exchanger is used in piping?

There are various types of heat exchangers used in process piping. Shell and tube heat exchanger is the most widely used heat exchanger and are among the most effective means of heat exchange. Shell and tube heat exchanger is a device where two working fluids exchange heats by thermal contact using tubes housed within a cylindrical shell.

How is the heat transfer in a heat exchanger determined?

The heat transfer in a shell and tube heat exchanger is determined by the exposed surface area that is decided by the number of thermally conductive metal tubes. The fluid flow inside the shell and tube heat exchanger can be parallel flow or crossflow.

Can a shell and tube exchanger have multiple passes?

Multiple Passes Shell-and-tube heat exchangers can have multiple passes, such as 1-1, 1-2, 1-4, 1-6, and 1-8 exchangers, where the first number denotes the number of the shells and the second number denotes the number of passes. An odd number of tube passes is seldom used except the 1-1 exchanger.