Shell and tube heat exchangers optimization using simulated annealing technique

Abstract

Shell and tube heat exchangers (STHEs) are the most common type of heat exchangers. They are applied in many industrial facilities. The minimization of the costs of these heat exchangers is a key objective for both designers and users. The heat exchanger design involves complex processes, including selection of the geometric parameters and operating parameters. The traditional approach to design shell and tube heat exchangers is evaluating a number of different geometries of the exchanger to identify those that meet a requirement of heat and a set of geometric and operational constraints. However, this approach is slow, inaccurate and does not guarantee an optimal solution. In this paper is analyzed a procedure for designing heat exchangers and develops the economic optimization of the data by the method of simulated annealing. It was considered as the objective function the minimization of the total annual cost. For design optimization were considered as independent variables the inner diameter of the shell, the outer diameter of the tube and the spacing between the baffles. Also were considered to optimize two provisions or arrangements of tubes: in a triangle and a square. In this paper it is also presented an example of optimization of a heat exchanger. The results of the optimization using simulated annealing technique are compared with those obtained using particle swarm and genetic algorithms.