RESTRICTED—COMMERCIAL HTFS RS1157

R&D Note 16

Modelling Convection Banks with Irregular Paths

D. J. Bate* and J. Sykes†

*Process Engineering Consultant

Huntsman Petrochemical (UK) Ltd.

†HTFS Combustion Consultant

Abstract

Many convection banks have irregular paths which FIHR currently

cannot model. Various 'work-arounds' are considered here, evaluated
with an example based on a real heater, and a satisfactory approach is
recommended. The next version of FIHR will allow more complex
layouts.
Keywords: FIHR, convection banks, irregular paths

1 INTRODUCTION
The HTFS program FIHR is restricted as to the convection bank layouts it can
handle. Currently, it can only model layouts in which the number of tubes per
path in any row is the same for all paths - or put another way, the number of
tubes in a row is an integral multiple of the number of paths.
A diagram will make this clear:

6 tubes per row 6 tubes per row 6 tubes per row

6 parallel paths 3 parallel paths 4 parallel paths
FIHR can handle FIHR can handle FIHR cannot handle

Figure 1 Convection bank layouts

Unfortunately, quite a large proportion of convection banks are of the type on

the right above.
This Paper describes and evaluates possible work-arounds.

2 CHARACTERISTICS REQUIRED OF WORK-AROUND

It is desirable to seek a configuration which FIHR can handle and which still
gives the correct heat transfer and gas-side pressure drop. Ideally it is required
that any solution:
C1 Maintains the same surface area for heat transfer.
C2 Maintains the same process-side mass flux through the tubes - this
ensures the correct process-side heat transfer coefficient and friction
factor and velocity head for pressure drop.

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C3 Maintains the same gas-side mass flux - this ensures the correct gas-
side heat transfer coefficient and friction factor and velocity head for
pressure drop.
C4 Crosses the same number of rows on the gas-side - this ensures the
correct gas-side pressure drop is calculated.
C5 Retains the same total tube length per path and number of U-bends -
this ensures the correct process-side pressure drop is calculated.

3 EXAMPLE
The example considered here is based on a fired heater with a firebox and two
convection banks, the first bank being shield tubes and the second bank tubes
with irregular paths.
The single process fluid (PF) is preheated in the convection banks before
entering the firebox (FB). Thus, any change in modelling the second bank could
affect the process fluid in the firebox, which in turn could change the temperature
of the gas entering the convection bank.
The design has therefore been reduced to just a model of the second
convection bank, in order to investigate only changes in the modelling of that
bank. The hot gas temperature was set to a realistic value and remained the
same for all the runs.
In the convection bank there are:
8 paths, 12 tubes per row, 8 rows.
This configuration is a little different from the real heater and has been chosen
such that the diagram on the right in Figure 1 illustrates a quadrant of the bank.
The process fluid, tube dimensions etc were not however changed.

4 WORK-AROUND OPTIONS
Assuming that maintaining the correct surface area (C1 in the above list) is
paramount, there are a number of options which are described below. The
various configurations are summarised in Table 1.

M1 Decrease or increase the number of paths (to 6 or 12 respectively in

our example).
This meets the gas-side criteria C3 and C4, but violates the process-
side criteria C2 and C5.
Decreasing or increasing the number of paths will result in over-
prediction or under-prediction respectively of process-side heat
transfer and pressure drop. This will in turn affect overall heat transfer
performance. It may be acceptable if the process-side heat transfer is
far from limiting and process-side pressure drop is unimportant.
M2 Increase the number of tubes per row and decrease the number of
rows.
In our example this would imply 6 rows of 16 tubes. This meets the
process criteria C2 and C5 but violates the gas-side criteria C3 and C4.
The gas-side mass flux will be reduced compared with reality (as the
face area is increased), resulting in under-prediction of gas-side heat

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transfer and pressure drop. The pressure drop will be further under-
predicted because the number of rows crossed has decreased.
Because the gas-side heat transfer is very often limiting, the process-
side temperature profile will be wrong which may well have a knock-on
effect on the process-side calculations.
This approach is not recommended.

Table 1 Convection bank configurations

Case Base M1 a M1 b M2 M3 M4 a M4 b

Number of
8 6 12 8 8 8 8
paths
Number of
12 12 12 16 8 16 8
tubes per row
Number of rows 8 8 8 6 12 8 8
Number of
12 16 8 12 12 16 8
tubes per path
Number of
96 96 96 96 96 128 64
tubes
Length of
6.4 6.4 6.4 6.4 6.4 4.8 9.6
tubes (m)
Characteristics C1 √ √ √ √ √ √
C2 √ √ √ √
C3 √ √ √ √
C4 √ √ √ √
C5 √ √

M3 Decrease the number of tubes per row and increase the number of
rows.
In our example this would imply 12 rows of 8 tubes. Like M2 above,
this meets the process criteria C2 and C5, but violates the gas-side
criteria C3 and C4.
This has the opposite effects to M2 above and is, for the same
reasons, not recommended.
M4 Reduce the tube length and increase the number of tubes per row (or
vice versa).
This has the merit of maintaining the correct cross-sectional area for
gas flow, and hence mass velocity, as well as the correct number of
rows crossed. It therefore meets the gas-side criteria C3 and C4. It
also meets one of the process-side criteria, namely the mass flux C2,
and retains the correct total tube length as per C5, but does change
the number of U-bends.
This will give the correct gas-side heat transfer and pressure drop, the
correct process-side heat transfer, but will lead to some over (or
under) prediction of process-side pressure drop, due to the U-bends.

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The effect of the change in the number of U-bends can be allowed for
by modifying the U-bend K-factors.

5 RESULTS
The main results are given in Table 2. In these calculations the K-factors for
both the tube to tube and row to row losses have been set to 0.4.

Table 2 Main results

Case M1 a M1 b M2 M3 M4 a M4 b

Solution Error (%
0.13 0.07 0.10 0.11 0.13 0.07
x 100)
Efficiency % 30.28 30.28 30.28 30.28 30.28 30.28
Heat transfer to
3557.5 3557.5 3558.1 3557.0 3557.5 3557.5
tubes (kW)
Gas
TGin (C) 949.2 949.2 949.2 949.2 949.2 949.2
TGout (C) 672.5 672.5 672.4 672.5 672.5 672.5
PG change 7.61 7.61 9.22 - 7.28 7.78 7.26
(bar abs x 105)
P/F
TPin (C) 252.00 252.00 252.00 252.00 252.00 252.00
TPout (C) 261.02 261.03 261.03 261.03 261.02 261.03
PPin (bar abs) 5.50 5.50 5.50 5.50 5.50 5.50
PPout (bar abs) 4.92 5.43 5.25 5.25 5.23 5.28
Key:
TG and PG Temperature and Pressure of the hot gas
TP and PP Temperature and Pressure of the process fluid.
The criterion C1 has been maintained for all the configurations and in this
example the process fluid acts as a fixed heat sink: the heat transfer to the tubes
and the gas outlet temperature (TGout) are the same for all the runs. The
pressure drop (PG) varies but is very small. More details are shown in Table 3.
The variations in the process fluid outlet temperature (TPout) are likewise very
small, but there is a wider variation in the pressure (PPout). These latter
variations are consistent with the expectations described in the previous section.

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Table 3 Gas-side results

Case M1 a M1 b M2 M3 M4 a M4 b

Number of rows 8 8 6 12 8 8
Number of tubes per row 12 12 16 8 16 8
Tubes Height (m) 1.76 1.76 1.32 2.64 1.76 1.76
Width (m) 3.05 3.05 4.06 2.03 4.06 2.03
Length (m) 6.40 6.40 6.40 6.40 4.80 9.60
Bank Height (m) 1.90 1.90 1.61 2.78 1.90 1.90
Width (m) 3.19 3.19 4.21 2.17 4.21 2.17
Length (m) 6.40 6.40 6.40 6.40 4.80 9.60
2
Area (m ) 20.41 20.41 26.91 13.91 20.18 20.86
Pressure change (bar abs x 10 5) *
Buoyancy 16.70 16.70 12.80 24.40 16.70 16.70
Acceleration 0.47 0.47 0.35 0.68 0.47 0.46
Friction - 9.53 - 9.53 - 3.95 -32.40 -9.36 - 9.87
Total 7.61 7.61 9.22 - 7.28 7.78 7.26
*Gains are positive; losses are negative.

6 RECOMMENDED APPROACH
The approach detailed in M4 above is recommended:
• Increase or decrease the number of tubes per row to a multiple of the
number of parallel paths;
• Decrease or increase the tube length to give the same total length of
tubes;
• Adjust the K-factors for the U-bends to give the correct process-side
pressure drop characteristic.
This will give correct results in virtually all respects. The only items that may
be suspect will be local pressure profiles on the process-side, and gas-side
pressure drops at the transition into and out of the convection bank (because the
shape of the bank has changed even though its cross-sectional area has not).

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