Heat exchanger and the influence of lattice structures on its strength

The heat exchanger is the main heat engineering equipment in various industries. The design of modern heat exchangers implies the presence of various turbulators. The purpose of turbulators is to increase the efficiency of heat exchange processes. Research of turbulators is limited to finding the optimal ratio between heat exchange parameters and hydraulic resistance of the system, without touching upon the issues of changing the strength characteristics of heat exchangers. Within the framework of this article, an analysis of a section of a tubular heat exchanger with a flow turbulator in the form of a lattice structure is carried out. Within the framework of this article, the method of comparative numerical modeling was chosen, consisting in the study of the stress-strain state and frequency response of the objects of study in the original and modernized formulations, under the action of thermal and gas-dynamic loads, modeled in heat-conjugate and mechanical analysis. The result of this study is the results of numerical modeling, reflecting the general change in the stress-strain state and frequency response of the heat exchanger. The analysis showed that the use of lattice structures reduces the average equivalent stresses in the heat exchanger by 10–20 % depending on the flow mode. In addition, frequency analysis showed a significant increase in the natural frequencies of the modified heat exchanger in the range from 86 % to 125 %. These results show that the use of flow turbulators allows increasing not only the efficiency of heat exchange processes, but also its strength.