The effect of friction characteristics of the heat exchanger model when using different number of swirl
vanes at different locations along the pipe length to enhance the heat transfer rate will be discussed
through a simulation for shell and tube heat exchanger using ANSYS FLUENT CFD techniques. The number
of swirl vanes inserted into each tube is three swirl vanes and six swirl vanes distributed along the pipe
length with variable diameter (10 mm, 15 mm, 19 mm) and different blade angle (15
, 30
, 45
) for each
case. The results show that the numerical results reasonably agree well with the available literature. The
case of six swirl vanes with 19 mm diameter and 45
blade angle gives the maximum heat transfer
enhancement, friction factor, and thermal enhancement factor compared with plain tube case. A correlation
for Nusselt number and friction factor is developed.