In order to improve the performance of the conventional segmental baffle heat exchanger's heat transfer, a new type of baffle heat exchanger, namely a spherical baffle heat exchanger was proposed. Numerical analysis models for the spherical baffle heat exchanger which radius of curvature was 0.75D and conventional segmental baffle heat exchanger were established and the distribution of the shell side fluid flow field and the shell side pressure drop and the coefficient of heat transfer were obtained. The results indicate that under the conditions of the same structure parameters and the inlet flow velocity, shell side pressure drops cause by the spherical baffle heat exchanger were lower by8%～11% than those caused by the conventional segmental baffle, while the shell side heat transfer coefficient was decreased by 1%～5% compared with the spherical baffles. 

The traditional baffle heat exchanger is widely used for its simple structure, safety and reliability and adaptability advantages, but the traditional baffle heat exchanger has many weaknesses:its thermal efficiency is low, shell side pressure loss is bigger and easy scaling.It is a very important engineering significance through improving the vertical baffles' structure to ameliorate the shell and tube heat exchanger's flow and heat transfer condition of shell side and reduce its energy dissipation.Baffle opening to improve the structure of a gap 0.2D height was studied by numerical simulation method. The velocity field and temperature field numerically simulated ordinary baffles heat exchanger and baffle opening heat exchanger. Under the condition of the same entering velocity of shell side, the thermal effect of baffle opening heat exchanger is better than ordinary vertical baffle plate heat exchanger.And when the entering velocity of shell side is slow, the effect is better.