Finite Element Analysis Of High Pressure U-Tube Heat Exchanger's Tubesheet

Shell-and-tube heat exchangers are widely used in petrochemical industries. Tubesheet is the most important and complicated part of tube-and-shell heat exchanger. It determines the economic and security of the whole heat exchanger. Most predecessor's analysis of tubesheet focused on "equivalent solid plate theory", which has many limits.In this paper a 3-D finite element solid model of tubesheet, with tube-channel, part of shell and tubes, is established for the analysis of the tubesheet of a high pressure U tube heat exchanger. With the model, the temperature field of the model is analyzed, and then, Based on the stress analysis standard JB4732-1998, the stress analyses are done for 7 steady or transient operating cases which may occur during start-up, steady operating and shut-down.The result of temperature field analysis indicates that the...