Estimation of Fretting Wear-Limited Life of a Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Tubes: Analytical Formulation,Computer Implementation and Qualification Against Actual Reported Failure

In a typical shell and tube-type heat exchanger, the tubes are clamped at the ends by tube sheets and supported by intermittent baffles with gaps. Vibration of tubes makes them susceptible to impacting and rubbing with the baffle support or adjacent tubes. Damage caused by these impacts and rubbing motions is termed fretting. An analytical tool is developed to carry out fretting wear-limited life of heat exchanger tubes. The developed tool is evaluated with reported cases of failure. The authors had earlier conducted this evaluation (Patil et al. in J Fail Anal Preven 17:126–135, 2017) in cases where the vibration was excited by vortex shedding. This paper extends the study to include the other flow-induced mechanism of turbulent buffeting, thus making the tool more comprehensive.