Improved design and performance study of a novel fixed tube-sheet heat exchanger utilizing a fluid drainage column

Abstract

The carbon emissions in the oil and gas industry are generally high, against the backdrop of low oil and gas recovery rates in oil depots during the summer. This paper proposes a novel fixed tube-sheet heat exchanger with hot fluid drainage column added at the left end cover. The aim is to enhance the heat transfer performance of the heat exchanger (HE), thereby improving the recovery rate. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods are employed to study the performance of the novel fixed tube-sheet heat exchanger (NFTHE). Additionally, the NFTHE is compared with the conventional fixed tube-sheet heat exchanger (FTHE) under various industrial conditions. The results indicate that under the same industrial conditions, the heat transfer rate of the NFTHE increases by 2.46 % to 5.71 %, the overall heat transfer coefficient increases by 22.7 % to 32.6 %, the shell-side heat transfer coefficient increases by 10.6 % to 25.2 %, the effectiveness shows an improvement ranging from 1.72 % to 7.92 %, and the number of transfer units increases by 16.5 % to 44.8 % compared to the FTHE. Comprehensive performance validation parameters show that the NFTHE exhibits superior performance across all metrics, providing a new approach for the design of fixed tube-sheet heat exchangers by adding structures at the end cover.