Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Demo

The shell and tube exchanger is the workhorse of process industry heat transfer, and the LMTD method is the calculation every heat-transfer course demands — yet students usually meet both only on paper. Lab-scale exchangers are expensive and shared, so the experiment that connects the log-mean temperature difference to real thermometer readings rarely happens hands-on. This project builds a student-scale unit: a horizontal steel shell housing a bundle of brass tubes, with a hot-water circuit (tank with immersion heater and pump) through the tubes and a cold-water circuit through the shell, thermometers at all four ports, and a valve arrangement that switches between counter-flow and parallel-flow. The student brings the unit to steady state, logs temperatures and flow rates, and computes LMTD, heat-transfer rate and effectiveness from their own measurements — for both configurations, on the same hardware.

1. The hot-water tank is filled, the heater is switched on, and both circuits are started with the valves set for counter-flow; the unit is left until all four thermometers read steady.
2. The student logs the four port temperatures and measures both flow rates by timed collection, recording everything on the experiment sheet.
3. From the data, the student computes the log-mean temperature difference, the heat given up by the hot stream and gained by the cold stream, and the effectiveness — checking the heat balance as the manual describes.
4. The valves are switched to parallel-flow, steady state is re-established, and the full measurement set is repeated on the identical hardware.
5. The two configurations are compared: counter-flow should show the higher effectiveness, and the student quantifies the difference from their own numbers.
6. The removable channel head is opened for the report photographs, showing the tube bundle the water flowed around.

Tech stack:

• Horizontal steel shell fabrication
• Brass tube bundle with tube sheets
• Hot-water tank with immersion heater
• Circulation pump and control valves
• Four dial thermometers
• Counter/parallel piping arrangement
• Timed-collection flow measurement
• LMTD experiment manual and worksheets

• [Steel shell] A horizontal cylindrical shell with flanged ends forms the shell-side passage for the cold water circuit.
• [Removable brass tube bundle] A bundle of brass tubes on tube sheets carries the hot water; one channel head removes so the class can see the bundle construction directly.
• [Hot-water circuit] A tank with an immersion heater and small pump supplies the tube-side hot flow, with a valve for flow control.
• [Cold-water circuit] A separate cold-water line feeds the shell side, with its own control valve — both circuits are independently adjustable.
• [Four thermometer points] Dial thermometers at the hot inlet/outlet and cold inlet/outlet capture every temperature the LMTD calculation needs.
• [Counter/parallel valve arrangement] The piping and valves let the student switch the cold stream between counter-flow and parallel-flow without re-plumbing.
• [Flow measurement] Both circuits include a simple timed-collection measurement point so flow rates are student-measured with a jug and stopwatch per the manual.
• [LMTD and effectiveness worksheets] The experiment manual walks through steady-state logging, LMTD computation, heat-balance check and effectiveness comparison for both configurations.

• Fabricated shell and tube heat exchanger with removable channel head
• Hot-water tank with immersion heater and circulation pump
• Cold-water circuit piping with control valves
• Four dial thermometers fitted at the ports
• Counter/parallel-flow valve arrangement
• Dimensioned fabrication and piping drawings
• Experiment manual with logging sheets, LMTD and effectiveness worksheets
• Project report PDF (background, heat-exchanger theory, fabrication, experiment methodology, results format)
• PPT presentation for final review
• Viva Q&A preparation document (LMTD, effectiveness, counter vs parallel flow, fouling)

• A teaching demo, not an industrial exchanger — the shell is uninsulated, so ambient heat loss is present and the manual treats it as a documented part of the heat-balance discussion.
• Temperatures are read from dial thermometers by eye (typical uncertainty around ±1 °C); flow rates come from timed collection, with the usual stopwatch-and-jug uncertainty the student reports.
• Steady state takes time to reach; the manual specifies the stability criterion (readings unchanged over 5 minutes) the student must apply.
• No overall heat-transfer coefficient or effectiveness value is claimed for the unit; every number in the report is computed from the student's own logged data.
• Hot-water temperature is limited by the immersion heater and tank design — the procedure caps it at a safe operating point.