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Heat exchangers are devices that some machines and plants use in order to transfer heat from one medium to another. They are widely spread, as they are a part of a great variety of household appliances. Air conditioners, stoves or outdoor wood boilers all have this device as part of their built. Also, a great variety of plants and oil refineries use heat exchangers in their day-to-day processes. One of the best-known applications for heat exchangers is its use in household appliances. Most heat exchangers are essential components of stoves, refrigerators and air conditioning systems. Also, they are used in radiant heating systems and solar heating systems. They are efficient power savers and, with proper installation, they will last for years without any repairs or replacements. Brazed plate heat exchangers are small devices made out of brazed plates placed at a predetermined distance one from the other. The liquid (cooling liquid or hot liquid depending on its purpose) circulates between the plates and exchanges heat with the exterior environment.Brazed plate heat exchanger are used not only for controlling the liquid Freon in your refrigerator's cooling system, but also for wood stoves and snow melting. An interesting application of heat exchangers is the beer and wort chilling heat exchanger. This is extraordinarily useful for those who intend to brew their own bear at home. In the brewing process, betting the wort within the optimal temperature limits is vital. If the wort is too hot, or too cold the beer will lose its flavor, become too bitter, or it will have too much alcohol in it.Also, brazed plate heat exchangers are suitable for swimming pool heaters and heat recovery systems. If you were ever curios where all the geothermal heating in your hot tub comes from, heat exchangers would be the answer. Water to air heat exchangers has been used for other appliances such as outdoor wood boilers and wood stoves. Those heat exchangers transport hot water through copper coils and aluminum fins. Outdoor wood boilers used forced air for their functioning. In order to attach a heat exchanger to a forced air heating or forced air cooling system, you will need to make sure it is properly sealed. If the sealing is faulty, the heat exchanger will have to work harder, and it will break sooner. The size of the device is particularly beneficial. When deciding on what size the heat exchanger should be, measure the plenum above the boiler coil then buy the next size smaller of the resulting measurement. Heat exchangers are also used in industrial applications. In almost 100 percent of the cases, the heat exchangers found in a plant will be shell and tube heat exchangers. Those pieces of equipment consist of a series of tubes that allow the liquid to
circulate without ever mixing. These heat exchangers are used for high pressure applications, such as oil coolers. Because of this aspect, they are nowadays exclusively used in plants. All in all, water to air heat exchangers are an essential component of many machines and plants at the present time. Whether you use a snow melting system that transfers heat to your driveway or you use your air conditioning or you just what to save some money on energy and decide to buy an outdoor wood boiler, you will use heat exchangers. Be careful with the install of those devices. It is extremely valuable to install them correctly; otherwise, the entire machine can break down. To avoid any problems, hire a professional in order to get them set up and ready to perform as expected.
The animation shows a "shell and tube" heat exchanger. When operating to heat up a liquid, hot water or steam will be pumped through the tank. This comes into contact with the pipes passing through the tank which contain the liquid that is to be heated. The arrangement of pipes gives a large surface area to conduct heat from the steam into the liquid inside the pipes. The same arrangement can be used to cool a liquid passing through the pipes. In this case, cold water is pumped through the tank to
carry away the heat from the liquid inside the pipes. The tubes allow a large surface area for heat to be transferred. To improve the exchange of heat, the fluids flow in opposite directions. Baffles can direct the flow of fluid inside the tank to improve heat exchange however this design can be prone to damage due to the expansion and contraction of the fixed tubes. Another type of heat exchanger has a single tube which is bent into an S-shape. Once again, the fluids flow in opposite directions to improve the heat transfer.
cp = Specific heat of fluid at constant pressure. DT = Change in temperature of the fluid. This formula provides the Theoretical Heat Yield to or from a given fluid undergoing a temperature change, DT at a mass flow rate, m with the fluids specific heat property, cp.
Practical Heat Transfer Control The theoretical heat yield of a fluid gives the amount of heat that needs to be transferred into or from a fluid. The practical heat transfer is a function of the physical geometry of the heat exchanger, its material composition, and the fluid condition. The general form of the equation defining the maximum potential heat transfer through a heat exchanger is expressed by the formula: (eqn 2) U = Overall heat transfer coefficient A = Surface area LMTD = Logarithmic mean temperature difference The Practical Heat Transfer Control is determined by the molecular thermodynamic interactions between the fluids flowing through the heat exchanger and the geometry of the heat exchanger itself. The overall U value is calculated by an equation specific to the geometric configuration of a Heat Exchanger. It is a function derived using dimensionless numbers such as Reynolds Number (Re), Prandlt Number (Pr), along with fluid flow parameters. The overall U value is calculated over the total surface area A of the heat exchanger, across which the fluids exchange heat. The log mean difference of the inlet and outlet temperatures (LMTD) of the hot and cold fluids for a counter flow exchanger is expressed by the formula:
(eqn 3) Thi = Inlet temperature of hot fluid Tco = Outlet temperature of cold fluid Tho = Outlet temperature of hot fluid Tci = Inlet temperature of cold fluid Practical heat exchange value, Qp, can be compared to the theoretical, Qt, value to determine if the heat Exchanger has enough capacity to fulfill the application requirements.