This study presents the results of shell-side pressure drop calculations for a model shell-and-tube heat exchanger with an inner shell diameter of 200 mm and an effective tube length of 518 mm. The tube bundle consisted of 85 copper tubes (12/10 mm) arranged in a staggered layout with a pitch ratio of 1.5. The exchanger contained nine segmental baffles with a 25% cut, spaced 48 mm apart. The mean temperature of the hot water flowing on the shell side was 69 °C, and the mass flow rate varied in the range of 1–6 kg/s. In particular, the effects of the tube bundle diameter, nozzle diameter, and sealing strips on the pressure drop were investigated. The calculations employed the extended Bell–Delaware method and the VDI method. The results were compared with calculations performed using Aspen EDR and with numerical simulations carried out in OpenFOAM and Ansys Fluent. The comparison shows that the difference in total pressure drop estimation can reach up to 40% depending on the method used.
Cieśliński et al. (Thu,) studied this question.