Application Brief

ANSYS AIM Streamlines Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Design

Optimizing the design of a shell and tube heat exchanger is a challenging multiphysics design
problem that requires understanding the fluid flow through the device, the heat transfer
from the fluid into the mechanical structure, the conversion of pressure and heat from the
fluid into mechanical stress and deflection, and sometimes other factors as well. Computer
simulation has enabled substantial improvement in heat exchanger design in recent decades
but the number and complexity of the physics involved has made it necessary for designers to
move back and forth between multiple software packages. ANSYS AIM streamlines the heat
exchanger design process by providing all of the physical models and simulation tools needed
to fully diagnose and optimize a heat exchanger within a single user interface.

Products Used
ANSYS AIM

Shell and tube heat exchanger example
Introduction/Challenge
The basic challenge in the design of shell and tube heat exchangers is achieving
the transfer of a defined amount of heat to the process fluid (or to achieve a
given change in temperature) while withstanding the service conditions of the
plant environment and minimizing the installed and operating cost. Traditional
design methods rely upon handbook formulas and engineering judgment
while typically focusing on the surface area through which heat is transferred
through conduction between the hot and cold fluids. A key limitation of these
methods is that they generally do not account for the flow geometry and rely on
assumptions for geometry-dependent factors such as the distribution of flow
through the device. The end result is often disappointing performance from
devices designed using traditional methods.

Over the past decade or two, dramatic improvements in heat exchanger design
have been achieved through computer simulation that incorporates the full 3D
geometry of the heat exchanger. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used
to analyze flow conditions and conductive heat transfer between the hot and
cold fluids. Finite element analysis (FEA) is used to determine the temperature
of the mechanical structure and the stresses induced by these temperatures as
well as the pressure of the fluids. Often design optimization software is used
to automate the process of running multiple simulations to determine the best
values for design parameters. This approach works very well for companies
with the resources to run multiple simulation tools but can present challenges
for smaller companies with fewer financial and technical resources.

Solution
Flow distribution in both fluid volumes ANSYS AIM simplifies shell and tube heat exchanger design by providing of the
all of the physics that are needed to evaluate a design under a single modern,
immersive user environment, reducing the training and deployment costs
typically associated with fragmented tool chains. Here is an example of how
AIM can be used to design a typical heat exchanger of the type that is used in
chemical processing, food processing and electrical power plants as well as
boilers for apartments and commercial buildings.
1
 ANSYS AIM Streamlines Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Design

Cold flow temperature distribution
The hot fluid enters at the inlet on the lower left in the illustration above, is
divided into 180 internal tubes, and exits through the outlet on the upper right.
Sheets direct the colder fluid outside the tubes through three passes from the
inlet at the lower right to the outlet at the upper left of the shell. The analyst
opened the computer aided design (CAD) model in AIM. The geometry was
divided in half along its axis and only one half was modeled in order to reduce
computational requirements. This was appropriate since the geometry and
physical forces are expected to act symmetrically. If this is not the case, the
full geometry will need to be modeled. In this case, the engineer directed the
software to automatically generate a mesh with about 130 million tetrahedral
cells for the half of the geometry being modeled. Both the hot and cold fluids
were defined as air. A turbulence model was used to account for turbulent flow
with the tubes and shell.

The engineer defined both the hot and cold air inlets with a constant velocity
of 15 meters per second (m/s). The shell of the heat exchanger was given an
adiabatic boundary condition with heat transfer across the wall set at 0. The
engineer defined the physics that were to be simulated including fluid flow,
conductive heat transfer, thermal analysis of the temperature on the mechanical
structure, and structural analysis of the mechanical structure based on thermal
and fluid pressure loading. The results showed the flow and temperature
distribution of the flow in both fluid volumes, the temperature distribution of
the shell casing and the equivalent stress and displacement magnitude due to
thermal loading. The software could have also easily determined the effects of
fluid pressure loading but that was not needed in this case.
Results/Summary
The information provided by an AIM simulation greatly streamlines the process
Temperature on outer wall of shell
of designing a heat exchanger. Engineers can view the graphical results of the
simulation to obtain key insights into the design such as the flow distribution in
the tube and shell, recirculation zones, areas of greater and lesser heat transfer,
temperature of the casing, stresses and deflection of the casing, etc. This
information provides everything that is needed to evaluate the performance
of the proposed design and identify areas of possible improvement. Engineers
can go one step further by defining parametric values for the geometry and
boundary conditions. They can then run a sensitivity analysis to determine
which values have the greatest impact on key performance variables and
create a response surface model that will evaluate the entire design space and
optimize the design based on the criteria important to their company. All in
all, AIM provides an easy multiphysics simulation environment designed for
all engineers, and dramatically reduces the time, number of tools and level of
analysis expertise required to design a world class heat exchanger.
Equivalent stress on shell

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