Pressure drop in laminar and turbulent flows in circular pipe with baffles - An experimental and analytical study

Flow in a circular pipe fitted with segmental baffles may be treated as a shell-without-tube system. Its pressure drop has been calculated by adapting the Kern correlation [1] for pressure drop in the shell side of shell-and-tube heat exchangers. The Kern correlation is essentially based on the Hagen - Poiseuille equation for laminar flow, but flow visualization results presented here show that enhanced mixing and turbulence-like flow may be present at Reynolds numbers (based on the pipe diameter) as low as 50. A mathematical model, accounting for the effects of geometry of the baffle configurations, has been developed to predict the pressure drop in circular pipe fitted with segmental baffles. The model was solved algebraically for flow in pipe with three baffle arrangements and the results were validated by experimental data. The pressure drops thus calculated showed better agreement with experimental results than those predicted by the modified Kern model for Reynolds number in the range of 50 - 600.