Heat transfer and friction characteristics of shell and tube heat exchanger with multi inserted swirl vanes

Abstract The effect of friction characteristics of the heat exchanger model when using different number of swirl vanes at different locations along the pipe length to enhance the heat transfer rate will be discussed through a simulation for shell and tube heat exchanger using ANSYS FLUENT CFD techniques. The number of swirl vanes inserted into each tube is three swirl vanes and six swirl vanes distributed along the pipe length with variable diameter (10 mm, 15 mm, 19 mm) and different blade angle (15°, 30°, 45°) for each case. The results show that the numerical results reasonably agree well with the available literature. The case of six swirl vanes with 19 mm diameter and 45° blade angle gives the maximum heat transfer enhancement, friction factor, and thermal enhancement factor compared with plain tube case. A correlation for Nusselt number and friction factor is developed.