Pressure drop in heat exchangers is an important parameter to consider for any successful design. How to adjust pressure drop in heat exchangers is a matter that this short article will discuss.
How to adjust pressure drop in heat exchangers
This is a quick guide on how to adjust pressure drop in heat exchangers, in particular shell and tube heat exchangers. This short article assumes that you are in a simulation stage and have already calculated both shell side pressure drop and tube side pressure drop. You can use shell and tube heat exchanger design software to carry out this design simulation.
How to adjust the tube side pressure drop
Increase or Decrease the Number of tubes per pass – Increases your pressure drop on the tube side and vice versa. i.e. More tubes per pass higher pressure loss.
Increase or Decrease the Tube length – Increasing the Tube length has an effect on the pressure drop, the action would increase the tube side pressure drop and vice versa
Number of tube passes – Increasing the number of tube passes will increase your pressure drop on the tube side and vice versa.
Number of shells – Increases the pressure drop.
How to adjust the Shell side pressure drop
Flow path length (TEMA type, tube length)
Change the Baffles style, cut and/or spacing
Number of shells – More shells increases the pressure drop.
Other ways to adjust the pressure drops
Can include Install tube inner diameter inserts also changing tube pitch. All above method will affect the pressure drops. Ultimately you want to reduce your pressure drops on both sides as this will have a final impact on your project cost reduction, i.e. pumps…etc
I hope you find this useful.
