S-SS-3-25 Analysis of NTIW shellside performance using CFD and Xist

S. A. Bouhairie

2013

Using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and Xist, HTRI simulated three configurations of no-tubes-in-window (NTIW) bundles in shell-and-tube heat exchangers. Our analysis of the trends in pressure drop and heat transfer underscores the importance of window friction and window momentum losses, even without tubes in this region, as well as the existence of longitudinal bundle friction losses for which HTRI’s current NTIW method does not account. The simulations corroborate HTRI’s NTIW design rules of thumb and provide additional insights; however, additional data collection is needed to validate the proposed improvements.