Comparison of a three-dimensional numerical model with existing methods for prediction of flow in shell-and-tube heat exchangers

A comparison is presented of a three-dimensional computational fluid dynami cs simulation, HEATX,for E-type shell-and-tube heat exchangers with experim ental data and other existing calculation methods. The comparison reveals t hat HEATX simulations perform consistently well across different geometries and operating conditions, with values for overall pressure drop within 10% of the measured ones. HEATX is more accurate than the other prediction met hods but at a higher computational cost.