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Advanced Process Design Engineering Course
Lesson # 04
Heat Exchanger Design
Part 01: Shell And Tube Heat Exchanger
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Shell And Tube Heat Exchanger
Designing a shell and tube heat exchanger might seem a bit tricky at first, but it
can be straightforward with the right guidance. This document offers simple rules
to help you through the design process. Whether you’re deciding on tube sizes,
where to place the fluids, or how to calculate pressure drops, these practical tips
will help you create a heat exchanger that works well, is reliable, and keeps costs
down.
Shell And Tube Heat Exchanger Designing Steps:
Designing a shell and tube heat exchanger is about balancing heat transfer
efficiency, durability, and cost. Here’s a quick and easy breakdown of the
steps involved:
 Heat Duty: Figure out how much heat needs to be transferred between
your fluids.
 Configuration Selection: Choose how the fluids will flow—counter
flow gives the best heat transfer, but parallel and crossflow are also
options.
 Fluid Assignment: Place the high-pressure, corrosive fluid and more
fouling fluid in the tube side.
 Tube Layout: Decide on the tube size, length, and pattern to fit your
space and maximize heat transfer.
 Thermal Calculations: Work out how much heat is moving between
the fluids and the temperature changes along the way.
 Mechanical Design: Get the right shell size, and space your baffles to
balance good heat transfer with minimal pressure drop.
 Material Selection: Choose materials that can handle your operating
conditions, whether that’s high pressure or corrosive fluids.
 Final Checks: Make sure everything meets industry standards and
safety regulations.
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Each step brings you closer to a reliable, efficient heat exchanger tailored to
your needs!
Heat Exchanger Design Methodology Overview
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Rule Of Thumb Summary:
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When charts for the LMTD correction factor aren't available, using 𝐹 = 0.9 is a
reasonable approximation in most cases.
3/4 inch outer diameter tubes with 1 inch triangular spacing and lengths of up to
16 ft are typical in many applications.
Shell sizes and heat transfer areas (e.g., 1 ft shell ≈ 100 ft²). These approximate
values are commonly used in practice for estimating heat transfer areas based on
shell diameter.
Tube velocities: 3-10 ft/s for liquids, 30-100 ft/s for gases. These velocity ranges
are typical for ensuring effective heat transfer while minimizing erosion and
pressure drop.
Corrosive, fouling, scaling, or high-pressure fluids in the tubes. It’s standard
practice to place these challenging fluids in the tubes for easier maintenance and
pressure containment.
Viscous and condensing fluids in the shell side. This is a common practice because
the larger cross-sectional area of the shell side accommodates viscous fluids and
condensation better.
Pressure drops: 1.5 psi for vaporization, 3-10 psi for other services. These ranges
are typical for pressure drops in heat exchangers, depending on the type of service.
Minimum approach temperature: 20 °F for fluids, 10 °F for refrigerants. These
values are typical minimum approach temperatures for efficient heat transfer in
shell and tube exchangers.
Cooling tower water: 90 °F supply, 115 °F return. These are standard temperature
limits for cooling tower water in heat exchanger design.
Heat transfer coefficients for shell and tube heat exchangers can be found in
various references, and online resources are useful for estimations.
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TEMA Configuration
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TEMA Shell Type Advantages & Disadvantages
Applicable codes and standards for shell and tube heat exchanger design:
ASME BPVC Section VIII Governs pressure vessel design, including heat
exchangers, for safety and fabrication.
TEMA Standards Provides detailed guidelines for designing, manufacturing,
and testing shell and tube heat exchangers.
API 660 Specifies standards for heat exchangers used in the petroleum and
petrochemical industries.
ASTM Standards Sets material specifications for metals used in heat
exchanger construction.
ISO 9001 Ensures quality management in the design and manufacturing
processes.
NACE MR0175 Focuses on preventing corrosion in sour service environments
(e.g., H₂S exposure).
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HEI Standards Offers guidelines on performance for heat exchangers in
power and steam industries.
PED (Pressure Equipment Directive) Ensures pressure vessel safety for
equipment used in European countries.
To save time, shell and tube heat exchanger design can be efficiently carried
out using Excel tools or specialized software applications alongside
applicable Codes and Standards.
The purpose of this example is to guide you through the design of a simple
single-phase heat exchanger using Aspen Shell & Tube Exchanger (Shell &
Tube).
The Design calculation will determine the required number of shells in series
and parallel, tube length, shell diameter, the number of tubes, the number of
tube passes, and the number of baffles and baffle cuts, and the tube side and
shell side nozzle sizes. Other details, such as shell and header type, baffle
type, tube diameter, and type of layout, will use program defaults.
The Shell & Tube design search will find the optimum geometry that can
achieve the required heat transfer duty within the pressure drop constraints
specified for shell and tube sides. The program has an advanced optimization
procedure, which will search through many possible arrangements to find
the lowest cost design.
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Contents:
Process Overview
In this example, a hot Fuel Oil stream is used to heat pressurized Boiler
Feed-water. You are tasked with designing a cost optimized design of a
Shell & Tube Heat Exchanger for the process data shown in the table below:
Field
Cold Side
Hot Side
Units
Boiler Feed-water Fuel Oil
Total Flowrate
59100
284000
kg/h
Temperature (In/Out)
50 / 165.3
213 / 168
°C
Density (In/Out)
879.4 / 909.8 kg/m³
Specific Heat (In/Out)
2.34 / 2.18
kJ/kg*K
Viscosity (In/Out)
1.94 / 3.37
mPa*s
Thermal Conductivity (In/Out)
0.1 / 0.107
W/m*K
Inlet Pressure
50
12
bar (abs)
Allowable Pressure Drop
1
1.5
bar
Fouling Resistance (min)
0.000088
0.0005
m2 K/W
Building the Model
Launch Aspen Exchanger Design & Rating (EDR) from the start menu. The
Aspen Exchanger Design and Rating main window appears. Aspen Exchanger
Design and Rating lets you to create a new model by selecting New under
the File tab.
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Select Shell & Tube (Aspen Shell & Tube Exchanger), and click
the Create button to start modeling a new exchanger.
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The Shell & Tube program will start.
Program Layout
When the program opens, you can view the following areas on your screen:


The Ribbon provides access to key controls based on the context of the
Tab. The default is the home tab.
The Navigator Pane displays a tree of all forms in the current
environment including the EDR Input and Results forms.

The Main Window provides access to input and results.

EDR allows customization of the layout.
Initial Settings
In the top-left corner of the Home ribbon, use the drop-down list to
select SI units.
Before
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After
Tip: Aspen Exchanger Design and Rating lets you select default Units of Measure by
clicking File | Options | General Program Settings.
Note: Run Mode group in the center of the Home ribbon. By default, this is set to Design.
In the navigation tree, click Problem Definition | Application Options.
Change the Location of hot fluid to Tube side.
Process Data
Use the Next button to navigate to the next form where input data is
required, or click Set Process Data in the Home ribbon. Using the data
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provided in the process overview table, enter the data provided as shown
below.
The flowrate data has been specified as kg/h, whereas the input screen by
default shows kg/s. Click the scroll-down area next to the mass flowrate units,
and select kg/h, and then enter this data.
Tip: Once sufficient data has been entered for the program to run, the red crosses
will no longer appear in the navigation tree.
Property Data
From the navigation tree, select Input | Property Data | Hot Stream
Properties.
Enter the physical properties for the hot side fluid, as supplied at two
temperature points for a single pressure level. You can skip the Hot Stream
Composition, since we are entering User Specified Properties.
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Enter the property data for the two temperature points, corresponding to the
hot side inlet and hot side outlet respectively. These are specified for the inlet
pressure of 12 bar.
The data should appear as shown below.
By default, the program provides entry for two pressure levels.
To remove the second pressure level, click the field in the Pressure column
and click the Delete Set button.
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Note: The Overwrite Properties check box is selected by default for direct input of
properties.
Use one of the physical property packages to generate the cold stream
properties. In the navigation tree, click Input | Property Data | Cold Stream
Composition. From the Physical Properties Package drop-down list, you
can select from the following options:

Aspen Properties

ComThermo

B-JAC

User specified properties

User specified properties using heat load
Select Aspen Properties.
It may take several moments for the properties package to load and for the
composition table to appear.
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Click the Search Databank button.
Type the first few letters of the fluid required, and then click the Find
Now button. A list of substances will appear that should include the
compound that you require- in this case, Water. Click your required
compound, and then click the Add Selected Compounds button to add it
to the list of selected components. Confirm the selection using the Use
Selected Compounds button.
Because there are over 15,000 components available, you may need to wait
a few moments for the search to complete.
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Tip: You can add multiple compounds.
You will return to the Cold Stream Composition form, where the default
weight % will be shown as 1, since you only have a single component.
From the navigation tree, select Input | Properties Data | Cold Stream
Properties. On the form, click the Get Properties button. The program will
calculate the properties of water over the default range of pressure and
temperature.
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At this stage, you may want to save your case, since all required data has
been entered. Go to the File ribbon tab, select Save As, browse to a suitable
location, and type your required file name.
Tip: Aspen Exchanger Design and Rating lets you automatically save your work at
defined time intervals. You can select this option by clicking File| Options | General
Program Settings.
Running the Design Search
To run the design search:
In the Run Control group in the center of the Home ribbon, locate
the Run button. Click this button to start the design search.
If you want to monitor the progress of the design search, you can click
the Run Status button.
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When the design run is complete, you can view the results. Detailed
information appears for the lowest cost design found in the comprehensive
design search. In this case, over 300 geometries were explored, and over 80
were able to meet the thermal duty requirement within the allowable
pressure drop constraints.
Viewing Results
To quickly preview key results, use the Results group in the Home ribbon.
Click the Check Performance button.
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Some of the key design results are highlighted in the above. You have a
single shell (1 series, 1 parallel) with 4 tube passes. The shell diameter is 875
mm and the tube length is 4950 mm. There are 1033 tubes. Here, you can
also see that your selected design does not indicate any vibration or rho v2
issues (erosion risk).
Tip: Reading Heat Transfer Resistance: Some engineers prefer to review their data on
a TEMA-style specification sheet. Clicking the Review Spec Sheet button displays this
form.
The colored bar below the table is the heat transfer resistance diagram. From
left to right, it shows graphically the proportions of the overall average heat
transfer resistance attributable to the shell-side process (yellow), the shellside fouling (red), the tube wall (black), the tube-side fouling (red), and the
tube-side process (yellow). Here, you can see that the tube-side process is
the largest resistance. This may indicate that if you want to refine our
optimization further, you can look at ways to enhance the heat transfer
performance for the tube-side process.
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This form can be scrolled (using the mouse wheel or vertical scroll bar) or
zoomed (using the frame zoom slider on the lower left of the application
window).
It is useful to see a drawing of the exchanger that you have designed. Click
the Verify Geometry button to view a setting plan or general arrangement
drawing.
Note: Using the tab here, you can also view the tube layout.
Tip: To view Setting Plan options, right-click in the Setting Plan area. A menu
appears, displaying useful options to control the appearance of the setting plan, copy,
or save (as a .png, .bmp, .dxf, and so on). Similar options are also available in the tube
layout.
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To review the variation of key process parameters within your exchanger,
click the Review Profiles button.
Right-click in the plot frame to bring up a menu of options to copy, save,
print, and control the display characteristics.
Many other results are available on the Navigation tree. If you intend to
explore successive design changes, you can use the Recap of Designs, which
allows comparison between each run you perform on a tabular list of
parameters that you can customize.
For a quick exploration of the effect of design changes, the Console can be
very useful.
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Printing Reports
Under the File ribbon tab, select Print. You can select which results sections
to print to form a customized report.
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Creating a Checking Case
In the Design mode of Aspen Shell & Tube, the program will explore a
number of possible exchanger geometries and will report the lowest cost
design. It will also store information on alternative designs that meet the
process constraints of required duty and allowable pressure drop. To view
the design results, click Results | Results Summary | Optimization Path. A
list of the different geometries evaluated by the Aspen Shell & Tube program
will indicate if the duty and pressure drop requirements have been met and
if they are a near miss. At the top of this table is the Current selected
case number that meets both the duty and pressure drops and has the
lowest cost value.
You can use the Rating/Checking mode in Shell & Tube to fine tune and
fully optimize the design.
To select the optimized heat exchanger geometry and create a
Rating/Checking case, select Rating/Checking from the Run Mode group
in the ribbon. The Change Mode dialog box will prompt you to use the
current design geometry in Rating/Checking mode.
Click Use Current to transfer the geometry obtained during the Design run.
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The program allows you to start a new rating case, but no data will be
transferred to the new model.
The exchanger geometry of the exchanger can be changed or adjusted.
Select
the Set
Geometry button
from
the
ribbon,
in
the Rating/Checking mode, additional design considerations and tradeoffs
to design can be evaluated to achieve an optimal solution.
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