Investigation of the Effects of the Baffles on the Heat Transfer Coefficient and Pressure Drop in a Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger

The scope of this work is to investigate the effects of baffle cut and baffle spacing on the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop in a shell and tube heat exchanger. for this aim, analyses are made for a standard dimensioned heat exchanger with variable baffle cut and spacing. it is observed that both heat transfer coefficient and pressure drops values decrease with the increase of baffle cut and baffle spacing. this paper demonstrates successful application of genetic algorithm for the optimal design of shell-and-tube heat exchangers. approximate design methods for shell-and-tube have been investigated and a generalized procedure has been developed to run the ga algorithm and to find the global minimum heat exchanger area.