Dynamic behavior analysis of tubular heat exchanger: Experimental and theoretical study

Tubular exchangers are among the most widely used exchangers in the industrial sector. It is essentially divided into two most common categories: shell and tube heat exchangers (STHE) and coaxial exchangers. It is also possible to consider a STHE as a sum of simple coaxial tubes, which greatly facilitates the understanding and modeling of STHE. Currently, the optimization of heat transfer in exchanger is a recurring problem for thermal engineers. Therefore, several numerical and experimental studies have been carried out. In this paper, the experimental and numerical study of heat transfer and dynamic behavior analysis of tubular heat exchanger (HE) is carried out in order to optimize the energetic performance of the exchanger. Experimentally, two configurations of co-current and counter-current exchangers have been investigated. Theoretically, the dynamic modeling and simulation of the HE was performed using Matlab/Simulink, Unisim-Design simulator, ANSYS-Fluent and Comsol multiphysics commercial software. The models' results were validated experimentally with very good agreement of 99%. Finally, the developed models are confronted to an industrial case of sulfuric acid cooling unit. The results obtained have a very good accuracy of 98.99% with the real plant data.