A Shell and Tube heat exchanger is often found in refineries as well as other la

rge-scale plants. There are several design variations and operating conditions t
hat impact the optimal performance of such devices. For the purpose of this exam
ple, we will be analyzing a straight, cross-flow, one pass tube heat exchanger,
with water flowing through the tube side and air flowing through the shell side.
We will define the heat exchanger s material as structural steal and will assume
a k-epsilon turbulence model for the flow of both the air and the water.
In this example, in order to save time, we will skip the Parameters, Geometry an
d explicits definition section. If you would like more information on those topi
cs, please go to the heat exchanger tutorial found in the model gallery.
To import the pre-processed heat exchanger model, click View then open the Model
Library. In the model library go to Heat Transfer Module, then Heat exchangers,
and open the shell and tube heat exchanger geometry. mph file.Once the file is op
en, we are ready to begin defining the physics parameters and the analysis.
First, to define the material, right-click on Materials and open the Material br
owser. Under the Built In tab, choose Air and add the material to the model. Sim
ilarly, open the Material Browser and add Liquid Water to the Model. Define the
water material by using the selection list and choosing Water domain. Once again
, add a third material by opening the material browser and adding Structural ste
el. Define the walls of the heat exchanger as steel by choosing boundary from th
e geometric entity list, then choosing walls from the selections list.
To assign the flow boundaries of the model, we will add inlet and outlet conditi
ons for the water and air flows. Right-click on Non-isothermal flow, then go to
the turbulent flow tab and add a boundary condition Inlet. From the boundary sel
ections list, choose Inlet water. In the velocity U0 field, enter the water velo
city as u_water. Now, right-click on Inlet 1 and rename it as Inlet water. Simil
arly, add an outlet by right-clicking on Non-Isothermal Flow and going to k-epsi
lon turbulent flow and adding a boundary condition outlet. From the Boundary sel
ection list, choose Outlet water, and from the Boundary Condition list choose no
rmal stress. This implies that the total stress in the tangential direction to t
he boundary as well as the pressure reference are set to zero, allowing the flui
d to flow without any impedance. Now rename Outlet 1 as Outlet water. Right-clic
k Non-isothermal flow and add another k-epsilon turbulent inlet. From the Select
ions List, choose inlet air and in the Velocity section change air velocity U0 t
o u_air. Then rename Inlet 2 as Inlet air. Again, right-click on Non-isothermal
flow and add a k-epsilon turbulent outlet. From the Selection List, choose Outle
t air and Normal Stress as the Boundary Condition. Rename Outlet 2 as Outlet air
.
Let s add the symmetry conditions to the flow by right-clicking on Non-isothermal
flow and going to Turbulent Flow, k-epsilon and choosing Symmetry flow. From the
Boundaries Selection list, choose Symmetry. Right-click Non-isothermal flow and
under Turbulent Flow, k-epsilon choose Interior wall. From the selection list,
choose Walls as the interior boundaries.
To define the heat transfer conditions, we will define temperatures at the inlet
s, and the outflow at the outlets. Similar to the flow, we also have to define t
he symmetry conditions for the heat transfer. In addition, we will use the highl
y conductive layer feature to account for the heat conduction through the shell.
Right-click on Non-isothermal flow, go to Heat transfer and add a Temperature b
oundary. From the Boundary Selections list, choose Inlet water. In the temperatu
re field, type in T_water, then rename Temperature 1 as Temperature water. Right
-click on Non-isothermal flow and under Heat transfer, add an Outflow. From the
Boundary Selections, list choose Outlet water, then rename Outflow 1 as Outflow
water.
Add another temperature boundary by right-clicking on Non-isothermal flow. From
the Boundary Selection list, choose Inlet air and in the Temperature field type
T_air. Rename Temperature 2 as Temperature air. Also add another Outflow boundar
y by right-clicking on Non-isothermal flow. Change the boundary to Outlet air, t
hen rename Outflow 2 as Outflow air.
Now add a symmetry property to the heat transfer equations by right-clicking on
Non-isothermal flow and under Heat transfer choose Symmetry, heat. From the Boun

dary Selection list choose Symmetry. Right-click on Non-isothermal flow and go t

o Heat Transfer and choose the boundary condition Highly Conductive Layer. From
the Selections list choose Walls and change the layer thickness to 5 millimeters
.
Now we will define modeling coupling operators in order to evaluate the equivale
nt heat transfer coefficient. Right click on Definitions and go to model couplin
gs and choose average. Change the geometric entity to boundary and from the boun
dary list choose Inlet water. Right-click average 1 and rename it as Average 1:
Inlet water. Similarly, add another average operator by right-clicking on Defini
tions. Choose boundary as the geometric entity and from the selections list choo
se Inlet air. Rename average 2 as Average 2: Inlet air. Now, right-click on defi
nition, go to model couplings and select Integration. Choose Boundary as the geo
metric entity and select Water-air walls as the Boundary. Rename integration 1 a
s Integration 1: Water-air walls.
Given the complexity of this model, the computation time can greatly vary depend
ing on the mesh size defined by the user. It is important to balance between acc
uracy and computational cost in order to ensure the most accurate solution in a
timely manner. For the purpose of this example, we will define a modified physic
s induced extremely coarse mesh in order to obtain a relatively quickly solution
while still remaining accurate.
In the mesh settings window, change the element size to extremely coarse, then r
ight-click Mesh 1 and select edit physics induced sequence. Click on Free tetrah
edral 1, then under the scale geometry section set the x-direction scale field t
o 0.5. Then under the Boundary layer 1 node select Boundary layer properties 1 a
nd define the number of boundaries as 3, then click build all. Once the mesh is
built, you are ready to compute Study 1.
Please note that it takes about 3 hours to compute the model with an average com
puter containing 12 Gigabytes of free memory. Depending on the computational pow
er of your machine, this time may vary.
Once the results are calculated, expand the Wall resolution node and click on Su
rface 1. In the expression section, click replace expression then choose Non-iso
thermal flow, Upside, and select Wall lift off. Click plot to see the upside wal
l lift-off for the tubes. From this graph you can see where the most critical ar
eas in terms of mesh resolution are located. Typically, an acceptable wall liftoff should remain under 10% of the tube radius. In this plot you can see that mo
st of the wall lift-off remains under the 10%, which makes this mesh resolution
sufficiently refined for the purpose of this example.
Now that we have validated the model, let us analyze the temperature distributio
n along all of the wall boundaries. Under the Data Sets node click Surface 1. Fr
om the selection list, choose Walls as the boundary. Under results expand Temper
ature and click on Surface 1, then change the default temperature unit to degC.
Click plot to view the temperature distribution along the new surface.
In order to create a 3D streamline view illustrating the velocity and the temper
ature, we will mirror the solution obtained by the original half heat exchanger
geometry. Right-click on data sets, go to more data sets and add a Mirror 3D. Fr
om the plane list, choose zx-planes as the plane of symmetry. Right-click on res
ults and add a 3D Plot group. From the data set list, choose Mirror 3D1. Right-c
lick on 3D Plot Group 4 and add a streamline. In the points edit field under the
streamline positioning section, type in 100 to define the number of streamlines
in the plot. Then define the line type as tube in order to make the coloring of
the velocity field more visible. Right-click on Streamline 1 and choose Color E
xpression. From the color table list choose Thermal. Right-click on 3D Plot Grou
p 4 and rename it as Velocity, streamline.
This figure illustrates the air flow as well as the water flow through the heat
exchanger. The largely different heat capacities between the air and the water a
re clearly portrayed in this plot as the temperature of the air changes much mor
e drastically than that of the water when it flows through the heat exchanger.
Now, right-click on Derived Values, and add a Global evaluation. Using the integ
ration and average coupling operators defined earlier, type in the following exp
ression to define the heat transfer coefficient. Here you can see the global exp

ressions embedded in the terms for: the power, the area, the inlet hot temperatu
re and the inlet cold temperature. Click evaluate to solve for the heat exchange
r s overall heat transfer coefficient. Right-click on Global Evaluations 1 and ren
ame it as Heat Transfer coefficient.
Let us now analyze the average water inlet pressure as well as the average air i
nlet pressure. Right-click derived values and go to average then select Surface
average. From the selection list choose Inlet water and in the expression field
enter p then click on the evaluate button to see the average inlet water pressur
e. This result is equivalent to the water pressure drop across the heat exchange
r, as the outlet water pressure is almost zero. Right-click on Surface Average 1
and rename it as Inlet Pressure, Water. Right-click on Derived Values and add a
nother Surface Average. From the boundary selection list, choose Inlet air and i
n the expression field, type in P. Now, click the evaluate button to see the ave
rage inlet air pressure. Similarly, this value is equivalent to the air pressure
drop across the heat exchanger. Right-click on Surface Average 2 and rename it
as Inlet Pressure, Air.
Find this and similar models in the model gallery, at comsol.com/models