Numerical study on shell-side saturated boiling heat transfer in spiral wound heat exchanger

A model was established to explore the shell-side heat transfer characteristic of saturated boiling in spiral wound heat exchanger (SWHE), which was used for liquefied natural gas (LNG). The saturated boiling mechanism was investigated by ANSYS CFX based on the model which was validated by the experimental data, and the correlations for shell-side heat transfer coefficient of SWHE were improved, where mass flux G, heat flux q and vapor quality x were 40–100 kg/(m²·s), 2,000–8,000 W/m² and 0.3–0.9, respectively. The results show that the deviations between simulation results and experimental data are within ±13%. According to the simulation results, the main boiling mechanism for shell-side saturated boiling heat transfer is forced convective, and the contribution of nucleate boiling contribution is slight (less than 0.77%). At the same time, the improved correlations are in good accuracy, the deviations between correlation calculation results and simulation results are within ±25%.