Volume 3: Innovative Solutions for Energy Transitions: Part II

A Correlation for Heat Transfer and Flow Friction Characteristics  of Spiral‐Wound Heat Exchangers Guo‐Yan Zhou, Jiaqi Cai, Xinghui Gao, Shan‐Tung Tu, Jinguo Zhai

Abstract

Spiral‐wound heat exchanger is high‐efficiency, intensive, energy‐saving heat exchange equipment with compact structure and widely used in petrochemical, nuclear energy and LNG industries. Due to the complicated internal winding of the tubes, heat transfer in the shell side of spiral wound tube heat exchangers has not been sufficiently studied and typical correlations available in the literature are limited in practical applications. This study presents the results of a numerical model developed to analyze the fluid flow and heat transfer inside the spiral‐wound heat exchanger of nuclear power systems. The study covered a wide range of operating conditions and geometric parameters, allowing the sensitivity analysis of heat transfer and friction performance to structural parameters and the proposal of a new heat transfer correlation for spiral-wound heat exchangers, which is compared with other correlations adopted in the literature.

Keywords Spiral‐wound heat exchanger, Heat transfer,  Numerical  simulation;  heat  transfer  and  friction  correlation