A Comparative Thermal and Economic Investigation of Similar Shell & Tube and Plate Heat Exchangers with Low Concentration Ag-H 2 O Nanofluid

Plate Heat Exchanger (PHE) and Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger (STHE) with identical heat transfer areas and material characteristics are proposed and a comparative thermal and economic comparative analysis is carried out on both exchangers. Ag-water nanofluid is used at low concentrations (0, 2.5, 5, 10 mg/L), flow rates (2, 5, and 8 L/min), and inlet temperatures (36, 46, and 56 °C) as hot flow and the heat transfer coefficient (U), electrical power consumption of the pump, and costs per unit of average U value are considered as the calculated parameters for each heat exchanger in co-current and counter-current flows. The results revealed that PHE generates a higher U value compared to the STHE under different Ag-water nanofluid concentrations. This is due to the existence of grooves on the plates of PHE which generates turbulent flow. The impact of nanofluid concentration on U is negligible for lower concentrations in both PHE and STHE. It is also found that the nanofluid flow rate has the highest impact on the U value, just like conventional fluid. Besides, even though counter-current flow increases the U values for both PHE and STHE, the flow pattern has a higher impact on the U value of PHE than that of STHE. For both PHE and STHE, increasing the nanofluid flow rate enhances the amount of U. However, the effect of flow rate on the U value of PHE is greater than that of the STHE. It is also shown that throughout the entire experimental temperature domain, PHE has had higher performance than STHE, and as the fluid temperature increased from 36 to 56 °C, there was a slight increase in the overall heat transfer of both PHE and STHE. Furthermore, for the same flow rate, both PHE and STHE had almost the same pump power consumption, and increasing the nanofluid flow rate from 2 L/min to 8 L/min promoted the electrical power consumption of the pump. Finally, we found that the costs per unit of heat transfer coefficient for PHE are significantly lower than STHE. The presented results also indicated that using a vortex generator at the inlet of STHE tubes, to form turbulent flow, increases the U values of STHE for both co-current and counter-current flows but these U values are lower than the corresponding U values of PHE. Small plates gap in PHE structure cause higher fluid flow velocities and create a chain-like structure of nanoparticles (NPs) between PHE’s plates (especially at higher nanofluids concentrations).