Sloshing resistance and gas–liquid distribution performance in the entrance of LNG plate-fin heat exchangers

• A new entrance configuration for plate-fin heat exchangers is proposed to make two phase flows distributed prior to mixed.
• Sloshing and steady-state conditions are both considered.
• Sloshing resistance and distribution uniformity is developed by using the new structure.

The mal-distribution of gas and liquid is the critical issue that can lead to the heat transfer deterioration in plate-fin heat exchangers, especially when the sloshing exists for the floating liquefied natural gas system. The severe sloshing motions of the sea strongly influence the uniformity of the gas–liquid distribution in heat exchangers. In this paper, a new entrance configuration is proposed to allow the distributor to provide a uniform two-phase flow before the two different fluids were mixed. As a comparison, both the uniformity and sloshing resistance are analyzed on gas–liquid distribution performances for the conventional header and the present proposed structure. Both the steady-state and the sloshing motion conditions are numerically simulated by using a CFD software FLUENT. The results show that the effectiveness of the proposed gas–liquid distributors was confirmed and the new design can significantly improve the uniformity of the gas–liquid distribution and the sloshing resistance of heat exchangers.