Heat Exchangers

Heat exchangers
• Facilitate the exchange of heat transfer between
two fluids without mixing with each other.
• Used in wide range of applications, heating and
air conditioning, chemical processing, and power
production.
• Heat transfer in heat exchanger usually involves
convection through fluids and conduction
through the wall separating the two fluids.
Overall heat transfer coefficient
Overall heat transfer coefficient is based on either the inner side
or outside tube

In most of heat exchangers the conductive resistance is very

small. If one value of h is remarkably lower, it will tend to
dominate the overall heat transfer coefficient.
Fouling factor
Types of heat exchanger
Shell and tube heat exchanger
Shell and tube double tube
Miniature shell and tube
Helical coil
Heat transferred through the elemental area dA
General Considerations

General Considerations
• Computational Features/Limitations of the LMTD Method:

 The LMTD method may be applied to design problems for

which the fluid flow rates and inlet temperatures, as well as
a desired outlet temperature, are prescribed. For a specified
Heatexchanger type, the required size (surface area), as well as the other
outlet temperature, are readily determined.
 If the LMTD method is used in performance calculations for which
both outlet temperatures must be determined from knowledge of the
inlet temperatures, the solution procedure is iterative.

 For both design and performance calculations, the effectiveness-NTU

method may be used without iteration.
 Effectiveness NTU method

Actual heat transfer

For parallel flow heat exchanger
• Maximum possible heat transfer can be attained if one of the
fluids were to undergo a temperature change equal to the
maximum temperature difference present in the heat
exchanger, which is the difference in entering temperatures of
hot and cold fluid.
• The fluid that might undergoes the maximum temperature
difference is the one with the lower specific heat capacity.