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 dynamics simulation, HEATX,for E-type shell-and-tube heat exchangers with experimental data and other existing calculation methods. The comparison reveals that 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 methods but at a higher computational cost.