THEORETICAL APPROACH FOR OPTIMAL DESIGN OF SHELL AND TUBE HEAT EXCHANGERS ON GENETIC ALGORITHM BASIS

Heat exchangers are devices used to transfer heat between at least two fluids heaving different temperatures; in most of the situations, these fluids are separated by a solid wall. Shell and tube heat exchangers are the most common type of heat exchangers; this is why more attention on their design, optimization and analysis is absolutely needed for energy conservation in the process of heat transfer. This paper presents an approach related to optimum design of shell and tube heat exchangers. The approach relies on the genetic algorithm for optimization of this kind of devices. The genetic optimization algorithm is based on the value of an objective function. It will be assumed that the objective function is the total cost function, which should be minimized. The use of such a method in practice will leed not only to optimal geometric design features, but also to the consideration of economic aspect of these devices.