Performance Assessment of Double Corrugated Tubes in a Tube-In-Shell Heat Exchanger

In this article, the performance of double corrugated tubes applied in a tube-in-shell heat exchanger is analysed and compared to the performance of a heat exchanger equipped with straight tubes. The CFD (computational fluid dynamics) analysis was performed considering a turbulent flow regime at several mass flow rates.

It is observed that the double corrugated geometry does not have a significant impact on the pressure drop inside the analysed heat exchanger, while it has the potential to increase its thermal performance by up to 25%. The ε–NTU (effectiveness–number of transfer units) relation also demonstrates the advantage of using double corrugated tubes in tube-in-shell heat exchangers over straight tubes.