Process Heat Transfer

ENCH3113
Chapter 5

Dr
Rajan
 Chapter 5

Bell Delaware Method

R. W. Serth, “Process Heat Transfer: Principles and Application”,
Academic Press, 2007. (ISBN-13: 978-0123971951)

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 Introduction
• In 1950 at Delaware University, a research program
in shell-and-tube heat exchangers was developed
with the sponsorship of the Tubular Exchanger
Manufacturers Association (TEMA) and the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

• The final synthesis of the study was published as a

heat exchanger design method by Kenneth Bell in
1963. This is now known as Bell or Delaware
method.
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 Basic Principle
• The method is based on heat transfer and
pressure-drop experimental data
corresponding to an ideal tube bank (a tube
bank with infinite width).

• The ideal tube bank is materialized with a

rectangular heat exchanger in pure cross-flow.
Half-tubes are installed at the borders to
simulate continuity
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Delaware Method – Experimental
Setup

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 Cross Flow Area
• Sm is the minimum
cross-sectional flow
area in the tube bank.

• In square or triangular
arrays, this is the free
area available for
normal flow calculated
at the central plane of
a tube row.
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Heat Transfer Coefficient and Distance
• It is known that in laminar flow the heat transfer
coefficient decreases with increasing distance
from the start of heating.

• This is due to the fact that with increasing

distance to the tube inlet, the temperature
gradient at the tube wall decreases and it also
decreases the heat transfer coefficient. This
phenomenon also exists during flow across tube
banks.
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 Number of Tube Rows
Bell proposed to introduce a correction factor
that depends on the total number of tube rows
in the fluid path across the exchanger.

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 Other Correction Factors for Tubular
Heat Exchangers
Data corresponding to an ideal tube bank must
be corrected to take into account the following
when used in real heat exchanger design:

•bypass streams
•baffle windows and
•effects of leakage

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 Bypass Effects
• The fraction of the total flow bypassing the
bundle could be as high as 75 percent in
laminar flow and 50 percent in turbulent flow,
with a consequent reduction in heat transfer
coefficient and pressure drop.

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Effect of Sealing Strips

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 Effect of the Baffle Window
• The effect of the baffle window on heat
transfer and pressure drop will be analyzed
separately.

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• Pressure drop corresponding to a cross-flow
section, which is the portion of the tube bank
limited by the edges of two consecutive
baffles.

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 Pressure Drop Through a Baffle
Window in Laminar Flow (Re < 100)
• The fluid velocity is not uniform
throughout the window, and it has
components in the directions parallel and
normal to the tubes.

• The total pressure drop through the

window will be the sum of three
contributions.

• The first is due to the flow parallel to the

tubes, another is due to the normal flow,
and the third one is due to direction
changes.
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Tube Pitch and Clearance

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 Effect of leakage on pressure drop
• Owing to the leakage existing between baffles and
tubes and between baffles and shell, both pressure
drop and heat transfer coefficients differ from the
values of an ideal bank.

• Bell, who assumed that the ratio between leakage

flow rate and cross-flow flow rate is independent of
the flow regime and depends only on the ratio
between leakage area and cross-flow area.

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 Pressure Drop
Bell determined the ratio
between ΔpL (pressure
drop for a heat exchanger
with leakage) and ΔpNL
(pressure drop for a similar
heat exchanger with the
same total flow but
without leakage).

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The shell-side heat transfer coefficient
of a heat exchanger

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 Total shell-side pressure drop

• First term on the right side represents the pressure

drop through the inlet and outlet sections.

• First term within the square brackets represents the

remaining cross-flow sections, and the second term in
the square brackets corresponds to the pressure drops
through the windows.

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