Numerical analysis on the thermal performance of a N-17000 condenser

A porous medium model with distributed drag and mass sink is adopted to model the steam flow and heat transfer performance of a condenser, in which the complicated multiphase and multi-components flow within the condenser shell is simplified as a two-dimensional single-phase stream-air mixture. For a N-17000 condenser, numerical analysis is carried out to evaluate the thermal performance of the two forms of tube arrangement. Based on the numerical results, suggestions of one of the tube arrangements are proposed, numerical predictions show that the thermal performance of the condenser can be improved by using these suggestions.