Design of Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger (1 shell in series & 1 shell in parallel)

Shell and tube heat exchangers are extensively used throughout the process industry and as such a basic understanding of their design construction and performance is important to practicing engineer. This paper suggests the optimum thermal design of shell and tube heat exchanger with appropriate consideration of the design variables (tube outer diameter, tube pitch, tube length, number of tube passes, no. of shell, shell head type, shell layout, baffle spacing, baffle cut etc.). This paper provides the concise description and simulation of the key issues that are involved in their design. Kern's method is used to find out the heat transfer area for the given design configuration. It must be stressed that software convergence and optimization routines will not necessarily achieve a practical and economic design without the designer forcing parameters in an intuitive way. It is recommended that the design be checked by running the model in the design mode. This paper is structured on Chemstations CC-Therm software which enables design to be carried out within a total process model using CHEMCAD steady state model software.