Numerical analysis of the steam flow field in shell and tube heat exchanger

In the paper, the results of numerical simulations of the steam flow in a shell and tube heat exchanger are presented. The efficiency of different models of turbulence was tested. In numerical calculations the following turbulence models were used: k-ε, RNG k-ε, Wilcox k-ω, Chen-Kim k-ε, and Lam-Bremhorst k-ε. Numerical analysis of the steam flow was carried out assuming that the flow at the inlet section of the heat exchanger were divided into three parts. The angle of steam flow at inlet section was determined individually in order to obtain the best configuration of entry vanes and hence improve the heat exchanger construction. Results of numerical studies were verified experimentally for a real heat exchanger. The modification of the inlet flow direction according to theoretical considerations causes the increase of thermal power of a heat exchanger of about 14%.