Development and Verification of MATLAB Functions for Pressure Drop Estimation in Crossflow Tube Bundles
The experimental data on drag coefficients in crossflow tube bundles is severely limited. It is largely contained in nomograms for a small range of tube bundle pitch ratios for both in-line and staggered bundles. These monograms and the corresponding correlations/curve fits are not readily accessible. This lack of experimental data presents a limitation when designing crossflow heat exchangers for nuclear reactors. Specifically, Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) that utilize cross-flow configurations with turbulent molten salts flowing in the shell side are of interest. Current methods of calculating the drag coefficients are outdated and time consuming when conducting design studies (i.e. picking points off a graph). A computer script could easily run the necessary rapid calculations of the pressure drop for a large possible range of Reynolds numbers, pitch ratios and tube bundle configurations. In an effort to facilitate increased access and accuracy to crossflow pressure drop calculations, a set of MATLAB scripts have been created. These are specifically for the pressure drop and drag coefficients for flow over rows of in-line and staggered tube bundles. For verification of the scripts, the nomograms produced by Zukauskas, of which the scripts are built off, served as a comparison to the plot generated by the MATLAB scripts. (authors)