A segmental baffle installed in shell-and-tube heat exchangers promotes strong turbulence and provides high heat transfer performance. However, it is associated with a significant pressure drop due to intense turbulence and flow redirection. Although double fan-shaped baffles have been proposed as an alternative configuration, quantitative criteria for selecting between the two baffle types remain limited. Therefore, this study performs a comparative optimization of segmental and double fan-shaped baffles under equivalent design constraints. Three-dimensional incompressible Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations were performed and validated against experimental data. The design variables included baffle spacing, baffle area, and overlap-related parameters, while the convective heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop were selected as objective functions. A surrogate model-based optimization framework with response surface approximation and a multi-objective genetic algorithm was employed to consider the nonlinear relationships between the design variables and performance metrics. The results demonstrated that segmental baffles are preferable when maximizing heat transfer performance is the primary objective. On the other hand, double fan-shaped baffles achieved up to a 45.0% reduction in pressure drop, a 416.0% improvement in the convective heat transfer coefficient to pressure drop ratio, and a 38.3% increase in thermal enhancement factor. These results provide quantitative guidance for selecting baffle configurations according to operating requirements.
Jeong et al. (2026) studied this question.