Performance of flow and heat transfer in vertical helical baffle condensers

The feed water heaters in power plants are actually the condensers using turbine extracting steam to heat feed water. The vertical feed water heater occupies less area than the horizontal one and convenient to lift tube bundles out in maintenance. However, the lower heat transfer coefficient due to thick condensate film limits its application. A novel trisection helical baffled vertical condenser (feed water heater) is proposed with liquid dams and gaps for facilitating condensate drainage. The flow and condensation heat transfer characters of two vertical condensers with variable angled trisection helical baffles of both single-thread and dual-threads and a variable spanned segmental baffled one were numerically studied with Mixture model of Fluent software. The distributions of velocity, pressure, volume fraction of condensate, and local heat transfer coefficient in these heat exchangers were demonstrated. The simulation results show that the inclined baffles with liquid dam and drainage gaps could drain condensate effectively from tube bundle surfaces and prevent liquid film from entraining into vapor, and that the variable angled trisection helical baffled vertical condenser with dual-threads could greatly improve the condensation heat transfer coefficient up to 35.7% higher than that of the variable spanned segmental baffled one.