Abstract: Aiming at several typical combinations of tube plate and heat exchanger tube materials, ANSYS simulation stress analysis and tube expansion process test are adopted to determine the tube expansion pressure of the tube plate and expansion structure of heat exchanger tube in the shell and tube heat exchanger and to analyze and compare the tube expansion effects. This paper verifies the commonly used expansion pressure calculation methods and the reasonableness of setting pressure. It also analyzes the case of non-compliance with the expansion principles and the expansion effects of pipe holes that are out-of-tolerance slightly.

Key words: heat exchanger, tube expansion process, tube expansion pressure, analog simulation