Investigation of the thermal-hydraulic characteristics in the shell side of heat exchanger with quatrefoil perforated plate

Quatrefoil perforated plate (QPP) is a kind of whole circular support plate for the shell side of shell-and-tube heat exchanger (STHX), and the design and optimization of heat exchanger with this support structure are the key technologies to study and improve the performance of heat exchanger. The influences of the hole height and plate spacing of the QPP on the thermal-hydraulic performance of the heat exchanger were studied mainly by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. And the reliability and accuracy of the numerical results were verified by compared with experimental results. With Reynolds number varying from 5000 to 20,000, the results show that the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop in the shell side of the heat exchanger both increase with the decrease of the hole height and the plate spacing of the QPP, but the shell side heat transfer coefficient per unit pressure drop h/Δp decreases. Under the conditions of the same fluid flow rate and same plate spacing, compared with segmental baffle heat exchanger, the comprehensive performance h/Δp of heat exchanger with QPPs is improved by 27%–41%. The empirical correlations for Nusselt number and pressure drop in the shell side of heat exchanger with QPPs were obtained and the calculation deviation of correlations both are within ±10%, which can be used to guide engineering design and practice.