Introduction to Heat Exchangers

Course objectives
What are exchangers for?
Exchanger types
How are they specified?
The design task

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide
This first lecture is mainly qualitative as a lead in to the later lectures.

It is very helpful to obtain samples from exchanger manufacturers to show the

students. Possibilities are
•A small, chevron-type plate for a plate and frame exchanger
•Various fin types for a plate-fin exchanger
•Etched plates and a sample block for a plate of a printed-circuit exchanger
•High-finned tube of the type used in air-cooled heat exchangers
•Samples of fins used in plate-fin exchangers

Copyright
Hyprotech UK Ltd holds the copyright to these lectures. Lecturers have permission
to use the slides and other documents in their lectures and in handouts to students
provided that they give full acknowledgement to Hyprotech. The information must
not be incorporated into any publication without the written permission of
Hyprotech.

1
 Objectives
By the end of the course you will
• be familiar with the main exchanger types
• know which is likely to be the best type for a given
application
• understand what are the key factors in exchanger
design
• be able to estimate the size and cost of key exchanger
types
• have the background necessary to start using
commercial exchanger design software
• be an informed purchaser of heat exchangers

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

2
 Lecture series
• Introduction to heat
exchangers Q = U A ∆T
• Selection of the best
type for a given
application
• Selection of right
shell and tube
• Design of shell and
tube

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Lecturer’s Guide

3
 Contents
• Why we need heat exchangers
• The basics of their design
• Some general features of exchangers
• Different types of exchanger
• The design process

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Lecturer’s Guide

4
 Example of an exchanger

Bundle for shell-and-tube exchanger

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Lecturer’s Guide
Exchanger from Motherwell Bridge Thermal, Scotland

Picture just to introduce a real exchanger early on.

5
 What are heat exchangers for?
• To get fluid streams to the right temperature
for the next process
– reactions often require feeds at high temp.
• To condense vapours
• To evaporate liquids
• To recover heat to use elsewhere
• To reject low-grade heat
• To drive a power cycle

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

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 Feed-effluent exchanger

Feed-effluent
Exothermic reaction
exchanger

Heat recovery

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Lecturer’s Guide
Worth emphasising on this case that the feed-effluent exchanger needs a
temperature difference to drive it, so there is a limit to what can be removed by the
heat recovery exchanger exchanger. Typically. Feed-effluent exchangers involve a
number of exchangers in series so that the picture is a simple case.

7
 Distillation

Reflux condenser

Top product
Feed Column

Reboiler

Bottom product
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Lecturer’s Guide

8
 Typical crude oil distillation Naphtha
and gases

Top pump
Kerosene
around

Desalter E2

Distillation tower
Light
Top pump gas oil
around Heavy gas oil Bottom
pump
around
E2 E3 Heavy
E5 gas oil
Light gas oil
Kerosene
E4
E1 Bottom pump
Furnace
around
Reduced
E5 E6 crude

Storage Reduced crude

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide
This illustrates that real flow-sheets are much more complicated than the idealised
cases shown previously. The many exchangers are to heat up streams to the
required temperature for distillation. The main heat input is from the furnace or
fired heater shown. Also, as much heat as possible is recovered when the refined
streams are cooled down. As if this were not complicated enough, many of the
exchangers shown would actually be groups of exchangers.

9
 Power cycle

Steam turbine

Boiler Condenser
Feedwater
heater
© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide
There, in practice, many more heat exchangers in a real plant.

10
 Q = U A ∆T
yw

Thot

Tcold

We have thermal resistances in series

1 1 y 1
= + rcold + w + rhot +
U α cold λw αhot
© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

11
 Heat utilities
• Hot utilities
– Boiler generating service steam (maybe a
combined heat and power plant)
– Direct fired heaters (furnace)
– Electric heaters
• Cold utilities
– Cooling tower (wet or dry) providing service
cooling water
– Direct air-cooled heat exchanger

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide
The refinery example shown previously, the hot utility is the furnace.

12
 Thermal integration
or process integration

• Reducing the hot and cold utility needs by

interchanging heat between process
streams
• If the plant needs are primarily heat,
thermal integration is usually by “pinch
technology” - Software HX-Net
• If the plant is concerned with heat and
work, pinch technology is supplemented
with “exergy analysis”

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

13
 Local and mean values
• “Overall” means from the hot side to the
cold side including all resistances
• However it is still at a particular point in the
exchanger: i.e. it is local
• Hence you can have a local, overall
coefficient
LOCALLY q& = U∆T

FOR WHOLE EXCHANGER

© Hyprotech 2002
Q& T = U m AT ∆Tm
Lecturer’s Guide

14
 Integrating over the exchanger area
Local equation
dQ&
q& = = U∆T
dA dQ
Rearranging
dQ& dA
= UdA
∆T
and integrating
dQ&
∫Q& ∆T = ∫ UdA
AT
Total area AT
T

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

15
 Definitions of mean values
From previous slides
Q& T
= U m AT
∆Tm

dQ&
∫Q ∆T = A∫ UdA
Comparing the two sides T T

1 1 dQ&
=
∆Tm Q& T ∫ ∆T Um =
1
∫ UdA
Q AT AT

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

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 Special case where Ts are linear with Q
• Eqn. integrates to
give log. mean
temperature

Temperature
difference - LMTD ∆Ta

∆Ta − ∆Tb Q
∆Tm = ∆TLM = ∆Tb
ln(∆Ta / ∆Tb )

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide
It is worth mentioning that the log mean becomes the arithmetic mean when the two
end temperature differences become the same.

Students could try the derivation. The starting point is a simple change of variables.
Given that ∆T varies as a straight line with Q, the equation from the last slide may
be rewritten as

1 1 ∆Ta d ( ∆T )
=
∆Tm ∆Ta − ∆Tb ∫ ∆Tb ∆T

17
 Multipass exchangers
T1
• For single-phase duties, T2

Temp.
theoretical correction t2
factors, FT, have been
t1
derived
• FT values are less than 1 Q
• Do not design for FT less
than 0.8

∆Tm = FT ∆TLM
© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide
It should be stressed that modern design software does not use these correction
factors because their derivation involves too many assumptions that are not realised
in practice. In stead, modern software carries out numerical intigrateions to obtain
the results.

18
 Typical FT correction factor curves
For shell and tube with 2 or more tube-side passes

Curves are for different values of R

t2 − t1 T −T T, t = Shell / tube side
P= ;R = 1 2
T1 − t1 t2 − t1 1, 2 = inlet / outlet
© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

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 Thermal effectiveness
Stream temperature rise divided by the
theoretically maximum possible
temperature rise
T1,in − T1,out
ε=
T1,in − T2 ,in

T1,in T1,out

T2,out T2,in
© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

There are two values of ε depending on which stream is taken as stream 1. We are
concerned with the higher of the two in this lecture series.

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 Compactness
• Can be measured by the heat-transfer area
per unit volume or by channel size
• Conventional exchangers (shell and tube)
have channel size of 10 to 30 mm giving
about 100m2/m3
• Plate-type exchangers have typically 5mm
channel size with more than 200m2/m3
• More compact types available

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

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 Compactness
Hydraulic diameter, mm
60 10 1 0.1
Human lungs

Special
Car radiator
Plate fin
Plate
Shell-&-tube

100 1000 10 000

© Hyprotech 2002 m2/m3
Lecturer’s Guide
The human lung is included to put mans designs into the context of what nature
achieves. However, our lungs are mainly mass transfer devices which transfers
oxygen to the blood and removes carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, the lungs have an
important heat transfer function. The air we breath in is relatively cold and must be
heated to blood heat before making close contact with the blood. The air is
therefore heated as it is taken in, thus cooling the various passage ways through
which it flows. These passage ways are reheated as we breath out the stale air. The
is a form of “regenerative heat exchanger”.

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 Main categories of exchanger
Heat exchangers

Recuperators Regenerators

Wall
Wall separating
separating streams
streams Direct contact

Most heat exchangers have two streams, hot

and cold, but some have more than two
© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide
The case of recuperators with the wall separating the streams is highlighted. It is the
most important and the main subject of these lectures.

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 Recuperators/regenerators

Recuperative
Has separate flow paths for each
fluid which flow simultaneously
through the exchanger
Rotating wheel
transferring heat between the
streams
Regenerative
Has a single flow path which the hot
and cold fluids alternately pass
through.

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide
As has been noted, the human lung acts as a regenerator because the cold stream
(the incoming air) passes through the same passages as the hot stream (the outgoing
stale air).

The regenerator shown above is a heat wheel.

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 Double Pipe
Simplest type has one tube inside another - inner
tube may have longitudinal fins on the outside

However, most have a

number of tubes in the outer
tube - can have very many tubes
thus becoming a shell-and-tube

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

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 Shell and Tube
Typical shell and tube exchanger as used in the
process industry

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 Shell-side flow

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 Complete shell-and-tube

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Lecturer’s Guide

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 Plate and frame
• Plates hung vertically and
clamped in a press or frame.
• Gaskets direct the streams
between alternate plates and
prevent external leakage
• Plates made of stainless steel or
higher quality material
• Plates corrugated to give points
of support and increase heat
transfer
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Lecturer’s Guide

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 Plate types

Corrugations on plate
improve heart transfer
give rigidity

Many points of
contact and a
tortuous flow path

Chevron Washboard
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 General view of
plate exchanger

“Plate exchanger”
normally refers to
a gasketted plate-
and-frame
exchanger

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Lecturer’s Guide
Photograph from APV

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 Flow Arrangement within a PHE
Gaskets
arranged for
each stream to
flow between
alternate plates

Alternate plates (often same plate types inverted)

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Lecturer’s Guide

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 Air-cooled exchanger
• Air blown across finned tubes (forced
draught type)
• Can suck air across (induced draught)

Finned tubes
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Lecturer’s Guide
Forced draught most common because it is easier then to service the fan motor and
also the fan motor runs cooler

33
 ACHE bundle

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Lecturer’s Guide
Picture from Motherwell Bridge Thermal

34
 Plate-fin exchanger

• Made up of flat plates (parting sheets) and

corrugated sheets which form fins
• Brazed by heating in vacuum furnace
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 Can have many streams
7 or more streams are typical

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Lecturer’s Guide
Figure shows a number of interesting points
•The way headers are arranged
•The way gaps are left at appropriate places to allow flow between the layer and the
header
•The use of low frequency finning to distribute the flow across the channel

36
 Typical plate-fin

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Lecturer’s Guide
Photograph from Chart Heat Exchangers Ltd

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 Spiral (plate)

Good for streams with large solids

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Lecturer’s Guide

38
 Cooling Towers
• Large shell with packing at the bottom over
which water is sprayed
• Cooling by air flow and evaporation
• Air flow driven by forced or natural
convection
• Need to continuously make up the cooling
water lost by evaporation

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Lecturer’s Guide

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 • Used for batch Agitated Vessel
heating or cooling
of fluids
• An agitator and
baffles promote
mixing
• A range of agitators
are used
• Often used for
batch chemical
reaction
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Lecturer’s Guide

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 Proprietary types
• Types described so far are generic types
• These can be made by any company with
necessary skills (no real patent protection)
• There are now many special, proprietary
exchangers made by one company or a
small number of companies under licence
• One example is the “printed circuit
exchanger” by Heatric

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Lecturer’s Guide

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 Printed circuit heat exchanger
• Plates are etched to
give flow channels
• Stacked to form
exchanger block
• Block diffusion welded
under high pressure
and temperature
• Bond formed is as
strong as the metal
itself
© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide
Photograph from Heatric Ltd

42
 Printed circuit exchanger

Note that “compact” does not

mean small but means large
© Hyprotech 2002 surface area per unit volume
Lecturer’s Guide
Photograph from Heatric Ltd

43
 Distribution of types
in terms of market value in Europe

Waste Heat
Other Heat
Boilers
Cooling Towers Recovery
5%
9% 10%
Air Coolers
10%
Other Proprietary
2%

Other Plate
4%

Plate & Frame Shell & Tube

13% 42%

Other Tubular
5%

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide
This is for a wide range of industrial heat exchangers. If we look at chemical and
refinery applications, the shell and tube type predominates (see lecture 3).

44
 Preliminary points on selection
• Tubes and cylinders can withstand higher
pressures than plates
• If exchangers can be built with a variety of
materials, then it is more likely that you can
find a metal which will cope with extreme
temperatures or corrosive fluids
• More specialist exchangers have fewer
suppliers, longer delivery times and must be
repaired by experts
• S&Ts cannot normally give high thermal
effectiveness, ε
© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

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 Design sequence
• Design the process flow flow-sheet
• Specify the heat exchanger requirements
• Select the best exchanger type for the job
• Thermal design of exchanger
• Mechanical design of exchanger
Looping back may be necessary at any
stage but can be difficult because of the
project timetable

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

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 Who does what?
• Design the process flow flow- Processor/
sheet end user
• Specify the heat exchanger
requirements
• Select the best exchanger type Contractor
for the job
• Thermal design of exchanger
• Mechanical design of exchanger
Manufacturer
© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

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 Exchanger specification
• Heat load (duty) along with the terminal
temperatures of the streams
• Maximum pressure drop each streams
– liquids - 0.5 bar
– gases/vapours below 2bar - 10% of inlet pressure
• Design pressures and temperatures
• Size/weight constraints
• Standards to apply
– General standards like ISO, TEMA, ASME etc
– Companies own standards
• Other requirements

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

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 The designer must supply an
exchanger which
• Meets the stated specification
• Has reasonable initial costs and operating
costs (most exchangers are bought on the
basis of the cheapest tender)
• Has a reasonable lifetime
– no damaging vibration
– no thermal fatigue
– no unexpected fouling or corrosion

© Hyprotech 2002

Lecturer’s Guide

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