Air-Cooled Heat Exchangers

Jim Stone

Stone Process Equipment Co.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide some general information on air-cooled heat
exchangers and answer some of the commonly heard questions. This is a mixture of
fact and opinion. Wherever the opinion is obvious to me, I have attempted to show it
by use of italics.

Why use an air-cooled heat exchanger?

Air-cooled heat exchangers are generally used where a process system generates heat
which must be removed, but for which there is no local use. A good example is the
radiator in your car. The engine components must be cooled to keep them from
overheating due to friction and the combustion process. The excess heat is carried
away by the water/glycol coolant mixture. A small amount of the excess heat may be
used by the car's radiator to heat the interior. Most of the heat must be dissipated
somehow. One of the simplest ways is to use the ambient air. Air-cooled heat
exchangers (often simply called air-coolers) do not require any cooling water from a
cooling tower. They are usually used when the outlet temperature is more than about
20 deg. F above the maximum expected ambient air temperature. They can be used
with closer approach temperatures, but often become expensive compared to a
combination of a cooling tower and a water-cooled exchanger.

How are they constructed?

Typically, an air-cooled exchanger for process use consists of a finned-tube bundle

with rectangular box headers on both ends of the tubes. Cooling air is provided by one
or more fans. Usually, the air blows upwards through a horizontal tube bundle. The
fans can be either forced or induced draft, depending on whether the air is pushed or
pulled through the tube bundle. The space between the fan(s) and the tube bundle is
enclosed by a plenum chamber which directs the air. The whole assembly is usually
mounted on legs or a piperack.

The fans are usually driven be electric motors through some type of speed reducer.
The speed reducers are usually either V-belts, HTD drives, or right angle gears. The
fan drive assembly is supported by a steel mechanical drive support system. They
usually include a vibration switch on each fan to automatically shut down a fan which
has become imbalanced for some reason.

What standards air used for Air-Cooled Exchangers?

First, almost all air coolers are built to Sect. VIII of the ASME Code, since they are
pressure vessels. For refinery and petrochemical services most customers include API
661 (Air-Cooled Heat Exchangers for General Refinery Service) in their
specifications. This API spec is very good since it includes all the necessary
information to properly specify a cooler and provides for a high level of minimum
quality in the design and fabrication of the cooler. In the back it has a very good
checklist where a customer can decide exactly what type construction is needed and
what options are important. These include such items as galvanizing vs. painting,
types of headers, maintenance walkways and platforms, controls, and external loads
on the cooler. The following details refer mostly to the API specifications.

What kinds of finned tubes are used?

The tubes can be of virtually any material available, such as carbon steel, stainless
steel, Admiralty brass, or more exotic alloys. The minimum preferred outside
diameter is one inch. Some manufacturers sometimes use smaller tubes, but most of
the process coolers have tubes which are 1.0", 1.25", or 1.5" OD. The minimum tube
wall thicknesses vary with the material. In some cases the design pressure and design
temperature of the exchanger govern the minimum thickness.

The fins are almost always of aluminum material. The most common type of fin is the
helically wrapped, L-footed type. These are used where the process temperatures are
below about 350 deg. F. The API specification calls for cast zinc bands at the ends of
the tubes to prevent the fins from unwrapping. Some of the better manufacturers also
use cast zinc bands at the tube supports. For higher process temperatures, most
customers prefer either embedded or extruded fins. The embedded fins have the
highest temperature capabilities. They are made by a process which cuts a helical
groove in the OD of the tube, wraps the fin into the groove, then rolls the upset metal
from the tube back against the fin to lock it into place. The tube wall must be thicker
with embedded fins because of the groove.

In some applications customers often prefer extruded fins. Extruded fins are made by
putting an aluminum sleeve (sometimes called a muff) over the tube, then passing the
tube through a machine which has rollers which squish the aluminum out to form fins.
The process is similar to a thread-rolling machine. The end result is a fin which has
extremely good contact with the tube, and no crevices to allow corrosion to start on
the tube OD. Extruded fins are often used in coastal locations or on offshore platforms
for this reason.

Some manufacturers make some rather startling claims for their "special" finned
tubes. These modifications usually involve some kind of wrinkles or cuts in the fins to
enhance air turbulence. We believe this is a lot of baloney. The cost of this extra
turbulence is increased static pressure for the fan(s) to overcome. These claims are
sometimes just too fantastic to be considered seriously.

What are headers?

Headers are the boxes at the ends of the tubes which distribute the fluid from the
piping to the tubes.

How are headers constructed?

Almost all headers on air-cooled exchangers are welded rectangular boxes. A vast
majority of the headers are of the plug type. This means that there is a shoulder plug
opposite each tube which allows access for inspection and cleaning of individual
tubes. They can also be used to plug a leaking tube. The plug holes are used in the
manufacturing process for access to roller expand the tubes into the headers.

The other common type of header is the cover plate or bonnet type. These are usually
used in low pressure applications (say below 150 PSIG) where complete tube access
is desired. This usually means applications where fouling is a potential problem and
the tube bundle may require occasional internal cleaning. As the name implies, these
have a removable plate on the back side of the header opposite the tubes. The cover
plate is attached to the header by a set of studs or through-bolts to a flange around the
perimeter of the header. A bonnet header is similar, but opposite in construction. The
whole header or bonnet bolts to the tubesheet and comes off. Bonnet headers are
sometimes used where the corrosion potential of the process fluid is very high and the
tubesheet material is some kind of expensive exotic alloy, such as titanium.

Headers are usually constructed of carbon steel or stainless steel, but sometimes more
exotic alloys are used for corrosion resistance. The selection of materials is usually
made by the customer.

Why are some coolers forced draft and some induced draft? Which is better?

It depends. The majority of air-cooled exchangers is of forced draft construction.

Forced draft units are easier to manufacture and to maintain. The tube bundle is
mounted on top of the plenum, so it can be easily removed and replaced. The fan shaft
is short, since it does not have to extent from the drive unit through the tube bundle
and plenum to the fan, as in an induced draft design. Forced draft units require
slightly less horsepower since the fan are moving a lower volume of air at the inlet
than they would at the outlet. If the process fluid is very hot, the cooling air is hot at
the outlet. This could cause problems with some fans or fan pitch actuators if the fan
is exposed to very hot exhaust air. Since forced draft coolers do not have the fans
exposed to hot exhaust air, they are a better choice in such cases. (API 661 par.
4.2.3.15&16 offer some guidelines for this.)

However, induced draft units have some advantages, too. A common problem with
forced draft coolers is accidental warm air recirculation. This happens when the hot
exhaust air is pulled back in to the fans. Since a forced draft cooler has a low air
velocity at the exhaust from the bundle and a high velocity through the fan, a low
pressure area is created around the fan, causing the hot air to be pulled over the side or
end of the bay. For this same reason, there should never be a small space between the
bays of a bank of forced-draft cooler. Induced draft cooler have a high exhaust air
velocity through the top-mounted fan, and a lower velocity into the face of the tube
bundle below. This tends to minimize the probability of accidental air recirculation.
Also an induced draft plenum does not have to support the tube bundle so some
weight can often be saved in this area.

Painted or Galvanized?
This is usually a matter of customer preference. However, the costs are roughly the
same if a multiple coat paint system is specified. Often the painted units are more
expensive. There seems to be a trend toward more galvanized structures because they
require virtually no maintenance. Painted structures require touch-up after installation
and they often rust anyway.

We recommend galvanized units wherever possible.

Plenums, dispersion angle, and fan coverage:

The API specification includes a number of paragraphs about fan coverage and
dispersion angle. This is for a very good reason. The actual air coming from a fan
does not distribute itself evenly at first. The most air flow is seen around the fan tip
area. If you measure the air flow across the face of a tube bundle, it is often very
different around the fan blade tip as opposed to the center of the fan or the corner of
the bundle. However, as the plenum becomes deeper, this localized effect is
diminished as the air becomes more evenly distributed. All of the heat transfer
programs assume that the air is distributed perfectly evenly.

The fan coverage is the ratio of the fan area to the bundle face area. The higher this
ratio, the better the fan coverage. The API minimum is 40% with a 45 degree
maximum dispersion angle from the fan ring to the middle of the tube bundle at the
middle of the sides or the middle of the ends of each fan chamber. More fan coverage
or a lower dispersion angle can improve the air distribution. (See Figure 6 on Page 14
of API 661for a sketch of this.)

A few manufacturers actually improve on this idea one step more, by using rounded
and eased fan rings. Rounded and eased rings offer two advantages compared to the
conventional fan rings. First, they enhance the distribution of the air. Secondly, they
reduce the air pressure drop through the fan ring, slightly reducing the fan brake
horsepower. When designing their coolers, some cooler manufacturers base their fan
designs on the use of rounded and eased rings, even though they don't build them this
way.

What kinds of controls are used?

As one might expect the best kind of control scheme depends on the application. Does
the process require a very tight control on the process outlet temperature, or is it better
to allow the process temperature to go down with the ambient air temperature. Is there
a possibility of freezing the process? Is there a pour-point problem? Is the cost of
operating the fan motors a significant factor? The following is a list of some of the
commonly used control devices for air coolers, but in no particular order.

1. Manually operated louvers.

2. Electrically or pneumatically operated louvers.

3. Pneumatically actuated automatic variable-pitch fans.

4. Variable-frequency fan drives.

5. Warm-air recirculation systems for freezing/pour point control in cold climates.

6. Steam coils.