Performance Evaluation and Effectiveness of Double Pipe Heat Exchange

A heat exchanger is a device, used to transfer thermal energy (enthalpy) at distinctive temperatures and in thermal contact between two or more liquids, between a solid surface and a liquid, or between solid particles and a fluid. In many process industries, heat exchangers are critical engineering tools, as the efficiency and economy of the system largely depend on performance of the exchangers of heat. The present work aims at modeling the Double Pipe Heat Exchanger, comparing parallel and counterflow analysis and efficiency in SOLIDWORKS 2014 and setting up flow simulation in Solidworks by adding boundary conditions, running calculations, inserting surface parameters, using cut plots and stream trajectories to visualize the resulting fluid. The fluid used at inlet is water and the Materials used are Stainless Steel 321 and Aluminium Alloy 6061. These two materials are used to analyze the Heat Exchanger Performance and compare the Results of these Materials. Double pipe heat exchanger Effectiveness is calculated theoretically by formulas, using NTU method. To calculate both the parallel and counter flow, Logarithmic Mean Temperature Difference is used (LMTD). By using this method, both materials using parallel flow and counter flow simulation is performed and results are analyzed. In simulation of double pipe heat exchanger, Thermal analysis is performed, based on the given boundary conditions and parameters such as Heat transfer Rate, Temperature of both the Fluid and Solid is calculated and all the graphs are plotted based on effectiveness and heat transfer rate. By comparing the simulation results and NTU method, 7.3% difference obtained, and temperature of fluid and solid is more for stainless steel 321 and varies from 342.99 to 343.2, and when compared with aluminum alloy 6061, varies from 340.5 to 342.99. Based on the results of simulation for both the materials the following inferences are made. Heat Transfer Rate for Stainless Steel 321 is more i.e., 33.983, for aluminum it is more 81.58, but it cannot increase more when compared to minimum value of both the materials. So, stainless steel 321 is considered, because the hardness of steel and corrosive properties of the steel.