3 replies to this topic

[patachimie]

Hello,

I am trying to make an excel spreadsheet for preliminary design of shell and tube heat exchangers (for cost estimates). I am wondering how to calculate the shell-side heat transfer coefficient.

I am hesistating between these methods:

 

-Donohue equation (Unit operations of chemical engineering, McCabe)

 

-Simplified delaware method (Process heat transfer principles and applications, W. Seth)

 

-Delaware method, the numerical approach and I would have to approximate all correction factors... (Process heat transfer principles and applications, W Seth)

 

-Kern numerical method for 2000<Re<10^6  (Process heat transfer, Kern)

 

I find that kern method gives very high values of coefficient, whereas simplified delaware method gives very small values and in between there is donohue equation, but its reliability is not very documented.

 

Since this is for preliminary design, conservative value of the shell-side heat transfer coefficient seems more logic to me, but I am not sure.

 

Thank you very much for your time.

 

[Bobby Strain]

I think if it was my project I would simply use an estimated overall coefficient. And concentrate on pressure drop. If you search you should find hundreds of spreadsheets.

Bobby

Edited by Bobby Strain, 04 October 2022 - 08:17 PM.

[breizh]

Hi,

Consider the document attached about Donohue method.

Two documents from one of our forum members added to support your work.

Breizh 

[patachimie]

Hello,

Thank you very much for your answers. Interesting article on Donohue equation. I decided to go with Kern method if 2000<Re<1 000 000 and Donohue for Re outside of this range. I will now test it out with real-life design problems and see if it works.

Regards,