Design of shell and tube heat exchangers without phase change

In this work, a basic calculation procedure for shell-and-tube heat exchangers operating without phase change is proposed and discussed. For the calculation of the convective heat transfer coefficient and of the pressure drop on the shell side, the Bell-Delaware method was used. The proposed methodology always guarantees the calculation of the optimum heat exchanger which satisfies the given operating conditions (pressure drop and fouling) according to TEMA standards; all this without assuming initial values for the global heat transfer coefficient. The method was applied to a study-case taken from the literature and the results show the efficiency and accuracy of the calculations.