Shell & Tube Heat Exchanger Sizing Calculator

TEMA · Bell-Delaware · LMTD · Duty · Required area · % overdesign

Size a heat exchanger in minutes

Enter stream temperatures and flows — get duty, LMTD, correction factor and the required heat-transfer area.

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What this calculator does

Given the hot and cold streams you want to exchange heat between, EnggiBasis computes the duty, the effective temperature driving force, and the surface area you need — then, in Rate/Design mode, uses the Bell-Delaware method for a realistic shell-side coefficient and an honest % overdesign number.

The method

1. Duty

Q = m · Cp · ΔT — the heat transferred, from the mass flow, specific heat and temperature change of one stream.

2. Log-mean temperature difference

LMTD = (ΔT₁ − ΔT₂) / ln(ΔT₁/ΔT₂)

where ΔT₁ and ΔT₂ are the hot-minus-cold temperature differences at each end. A correction factor F (from the Bowman charts) accounts for multi-pass, non-counter-current arrangements.

3. Required area

A = Q / (U · LMTD · F)

with U the overall heat-transfer coefficient. EnggiBasis builds U from film coefficients (Gnielinski tube side, Bell-Delaware shell side) plus fouling — not a single guessed number.

Honest positioning: EnggiBasis implements publicly documented methods (TEMA, Bell-Delaware, Gnielinski) for single-phase service and study-grade mechanical estimates. For rigorous two-phase and proprietary correlations, dedicated tools like HTRI still lead — and we say so on the page.

Worked example

InputValue
Duty1500 kW
Overall U500 W/m²·K
LMTD50 °C
Correction factor F0.90

Result: required area A = 1,500,000 / (500 × 50 × 0.90) ≈ 66.7 m². Try it with your own streams →

FAQ

How do you calculate heat exchanger area?

A = Q / (U · LMTD · F) — duty over the product of U, the log-mean ΔT and the correction factor.

What is LMTD?

LMTD = (ΔT₁ − ΔT₂)/ln(ΔT₁/ΔT₂), the log-mean of the end temperature differences.

Is this free?

Heat exchanger sizing is part of EnggiBasis Pro (₹99/month). Open the app free to explore.

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Duty, LMTD & area with Bell-Delaware · Pro (₹99/month)

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