Pressure drop and power dissipation in oscillatory baffled heat exchanger

Abstract

In the research work, the pressure drop in an oscillatory baffled plate double pipe heat exchanger is investigated. The pressure drop is a major lost encountered in this unit operation. The variables affecting the pressure drop include the ratio of the diameter of baffled plate to pipe diameter, the ratio of distance between the baffled plate to pipe diameter, the flowrate of the hot stream, the frequency, and amplitude of the oscillatory movement. We investigate the relationship among these variables in a dimensionless form in the range of Oscillation Reynolds number between 0 to 2,000, Reynolds number from 100 to 1,000, the ratio of the diameter of baffled plate to pipe diameter from 0.4 to 0.7, the ratio of distance between the baffled plate to pipe diameter from 1 to 2.5, the frequency of the oscillatory movement from 0.5 to 2.0 Hz, and the amplitude of the oscillatory movement from 0.25 to 1.0 cm. the behavior observed can be classified into two categories with different range of Reynolds number, from 200 to 600 and 700 to 1,200. The empirical models developed for both categories are