Performance comparison of heat exchangers using sextant/trisection helical baffles and segmental ones

The shell side flow fields of both sextant and trisection helical baffle heat exchangers are presented on meridian and multilayer hexagon slices. It verifies that the performance of sextant schemes is better than those of the other kinds of helical baffle heat exchangers. The main mechanisms are due to the restricted leakage flow in the minimized gaps with increased baffle number and by one row of tubes dampen the leakage flow in the circumferential overlapped area of the adjacent helical baffles. The performance features were simulated on two different angled sextant helical heat exchangers and each compared with two trisection ones of either identical helical pitch or identical incline angle. The results verified that the performances of helical heat exchangers are mainly determined by the helical pitch rather than the baffle incline angle. The average values of comprehensive index h_oΔp_o^-1/3 of the trisection helical schemes T-24.1° and T-29.7° are correspondingly 3.47% and 3.34% lower than those of the sextant ones X-20° and X-25° with identical helical pitches. The comparison results show that the average values of shell side h.t.c. h_o and comprehensive index h_oΔp_o^-1/3 of the optimal dual helix sextant scheme DX30° are respectively 7.22% and 23.56% higher than those of the segment scheme S100.