Title: Numerical investigation of the heat transfer and pressure drop on tube bundle support plates for inline and staggered arrangements

Authors: Erman Aslan

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Istanbul University, TR-34320, Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract: Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics are investigated numerically on tube bundle support plates for inline and staggered arrangements. Three-dimensional numerical analyses within the framework of unsteady Reynolds averaged numerical simulations are performed using four different turbulence models, namely the realisable k-ε, k-ω, SST and transition SST models. In order to reduce the computational effort, simplifications with respect to the domain definition are applied, which were validated within the framework of preliminary studies for assuring accuracy. A constant inlet temperature and a uniform heat flux on the support plates are applied as thermal boundary conditions. The Reynolds number is varied from 989 to 5,550, while keeping the Prandtl number constant at 0.70. The Nusselt number and the pressure drop values are obtained as functions of the Reynolds numbers. The effects of tube bundle arrangements on heat transfer and pressure drop are discussed. Results obtained using different turbulence models are compared with each other and with experiments. The best agreement with the experiments is obtained by the SST model. The least accurate results are provided by the k-ε model. The remaining two turbulence models showed an acceptable performance, close to that of the SST model.

Keywords: heat transfer; pressure drop; tube bundle support plates; unsteady RANS; Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes URANS; numerical simulation; finite volume method; FVM; turbulence modelling; inlet temperature; heat flux; inline; staggered; tube bundle configurations.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2016.074249

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2016 Vol.16 No.1, pp.38 - 47

Published online: 19 Jan 2016 *

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