• DECEMBER 2019

Intro to Heat Exchangers

How Heat Exchangers Work – Lesson 3

Intro

• Many engineering applications rely on heat transfer between two fluids that are at different temperatures and
separated by a solid wall to keep them from mixing with each other.

HVAC Radiators Power Generation Chemical and Process Industres

• The device that facilitates this exchange of thermal energy is called a heat exchanger.
• Heat transfer in such devices relies on convection in each fluid and conduction through the wall separating the
two fluids.

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Types of Heat Exchangers

• Heat exchangers are often given specific names to T T

reflect the applications for which they are used:

‐ Condenser : Heat exchanger in which one fluid is cooled
and condenses as it flows though the heat exchanger.
‐ Boiler: one of fluids absorbs heat and vaporizes
‐ Space radiator: transfers heat from a fluid to an ambient
space

x x
• Heat exchangers can be classified based on flow Cold out Cold in
arrangement and type of construction.
Hot in Hot in

• The simplest heat exchangers consist of concentric Hot Out Hot Out
tubes in which the hot and the cold fluid move in the
same or opposite directions.
Cold in Cold out

Parallel flow Counter flow

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Cross-Flow Heat Exchangers
• Fluids can also move perpendicular to each other. This flow configuration is known as cross-flow.
• Cross-flow heat exchangers are further classified as finned and unfinned heat exchangers.

Cross-flow

Cross-flow
Tube flow
Finned Unfinned
• Fins are added to increase the heat transfer surface area.
• Fins force the outer fluid through a particular inter-fin spacing, preventing it from moving parallel to the tubes
and thus reducing mixing.
• The nature of the mixing condition can significantly influence heat exchanger performance.

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Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchangers
• One common type of heat exchanger in industrial applications is the shell-and-tube heat exchanger.
• It contains a large number of parallel tubes packed in a shell. Heat is exchanged as one fluid flows through the
tubes while the other flows outside the tube through the shell.
• Baffles are placed in the shell to force the shell-side fluid to flow across the shell to enhance the heat transfer and
to support and maintain uniform spacing between the tubes.
Tube Shell
Inlet Outlet
Baffles

Front-end Rear-end
Header Header

Tubes
Shell Shell Tube
inlet Outlet Shell and tube Heat Exchanger with shell
Shell and tube Heat Exchanger removed showing the tubes

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Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchangers (cont.)

• Shell-and-tube heat exchangers are further classified according to the number of shell and tube
passes involved.
Shell-side fluid
In
Shell-side fluid
In

Tube-side fluid
Out
Tube-side fluid
Out
Tube-side fluid
in

Tube-side fluid
in
Shell-side fluid
Out

Shell-side fluid
Out

One shell pass and two tube passes Two shell passes and four tube passes

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Plate and Frame Heat Exchangers

• Plate and frame (or just plate) heat exchangers consist of a series of
plates with corrugated flat flow passages.
• Hot and cold fluids flow in alternate passages, and thus each cold
fluid stream is surrounded by two hot fluid streams resulting in a
very effective heat transfer.
• The system can be scaled to handle increasing demand for heat Hot Fluid
transfer by simply mounting more plates. Inlet
• Plate and frame heat exchangers are well-suited for liquid-to-liquid
heat transfer if the two are at similar pressures. End Plate
Cold Fluid
Outlet

Plates
Cold Fluid
Inlet
Hot Fluid
Outlet

Exploded View of a Plate Heat Exchanger

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Regenerative Heat Exchangers or Regenerators
Hot fluid in Cold in
• Involve the alternate passage of hot and cold fluid streams through the
same flow area.
• Heat from the hot fluid is intermittently stored in a thermal storage
medium before it is transferred to the cold fluid.
• To accomplish this, the hot fluid is brought into contact with the heat
storage medium, then the fluid is displaced with the cold fluid, which
absorbs the heat.
• Two types of regenerative heat exchangers exist:
‐ Static type regenerative heat exchanger: consists of a porous mass having a large heat
storage capacity, such as a ceramic wire mesh. Hot and cold fluids flow through this
porous mass alternately.
‐ Dynamic type regenerative heat exchanger: involves a rotating drum and continuous flow Cold fluid out Hot Out
of the hot and cold fluid through different portions of the drum so that any portion of the
drum passes periodically through the hot stream storing heat and then through the cold
stream rejecting this stored heat. Regenerative Heat Exchanger (Static)

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Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient
• Heat that has been convected by the hot fluid is conducted through the wall and then convected again by the
cold fluid.
• The thermal resistance circuit for this process involves two convection and one conduction resistances.
• The Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient is defined in terms of the total thermal resistance to heat transfer between
the two fluids. For an unfinned tubular heat exchanger, we can compute 𝑅𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 as shown below:
𝐷𝑜
1 ln 1
𝐷𝑖
𝑅𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 = 𝑅𝑐 + 𝑅𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑙 + 𝑅ℎ = + +
𝑇ℎ 𝑇𝑐 ℎ𝑐 𝐴𝑐 2𝜋𝑘𝐿 ℎℎ 𝐴ℎ

𝑅ℎ 𝑅𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑅𝑐 Rate of heat transfer between two fluids:

Cold fluid Δ𝑇
𝑄ሶ = = 𝑈𝐴𝑠 Δ𝑇 = 𝑈𝑐 𝐴𝑐 Δ𝑇 = 𝑈ℎ 𝐴ℎ Δ𝑇
𝑇ℎ 𝑅
Hot fluid Where 𝐴𝑠 is the surface area and 𝑈 is the
overall heat transfer coefficient:
Hot fluid Cold fluid
1 1 1 1 1
𝑇𝑐 = = =𝑅= + 𝑅𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑙 +
𝑈𝐴𝑠 𝑈𝑐 𝐴𝑐 𝑈ℎ 𝐴ℎ ℎ𝑐 𝐴𝑐 ℎℎ 𝐴ℎ

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Fouling Factor
• Performance deteriorates with time as a result of accumulation of
deposits on heat transfer surfaces, thus creating additional
resistance to heat transfer.
• The net effect of these accumulations on heat transfer is Representative Fouling Factors
represented by a fouling factor 𝑅𝑓 , which is a measure of the
Fluid 𝑹𝒇 (𝒎𝟐 . 𝑲/𝑾)
thermal resistance introduced by fouling.
Seawater and treated boiler feedwater (< 50𝑜 𝐶) 0.0001
1 1 1 1 𝑅𝑓,𝑐 𝑅𝑓,ℎ 1 Seawater and treated boiler feedwater (> 50𝑜 𝐶) 0.0002
= = =𝑅= + + 𝑅𝑤 + +
𝑈𝐴𝑠 𝑈𝑐 𝐴𝑐 𝑈ℎ 𝐴ℎ ℎℎ 𝐴ℎ 𝐴𝑐 𝐴ℎ ℎ𝑐 𝐴𝑐 River Water 0.0002 − 0.001
Fuel Oil 0.0009

• Types of fouling – Refrigerating Liquids 0.0002

‐ Scaling/Precipitation of solid deposits – water treatment in powerplants Steam (non-oil bearing) 0.0001
and process industries, solid ash particles from flue gases deposit on
preheaters.
‐ Chemical Fouling – corrosion
‐ Biological fouling – formation of algae
• Fouling should be considered in the design and selection of heat
exchangers.

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Overall Surface Efficiency
• Adding fins to the surfaces exposed to one of the two fluids or to both fluids increases the surface area and
reduces the resistance to convection heat transfer.
• The overall heat transfer coefficient including the surface fouling and fin effects can be written as:
1 1 1 1 𝑅𝑓,𝑐 𝑅𝑓,ℎ 1
= = = + + 𝑅𝑤 + +
𝑈𝐴𝑠 𝑈𝑐 𝐴𝑐 𝑈ℎ 𝐴ℎ (𝜂𝑜 ℎ 𝐴)𝑐 (𝜂𝑜 𝐴)𝑐 (𝜂𝑜 𝐴)ℎ (𝜂𝑜 ℎ𝐴)ℎ

• 𝜂𝑜 is the overall surface efficiency or temperature effectiveness of a finned surface. For a hot or cold surface
without fouling it is expressed as:
𝑞 = 𝜂𝑜 ℎ𝐴(𝑇𝑏 − 𝑇∞ )

• Here 𝑇𝑏 and 𝐴 are the base surface temperature and total surface area (fin + exposed base), respectively.
• Using heat transfer analysis of extended surfaces, we can derive the following expression for overall surface
efficiency: 𝐴𝑓
𝜂𝑜 = 1 − (1 − 𝜂𝑓 )
𝐴
• For a straight or pin fin of length 𝐿 with an adiabatic tip, 𝜂𝑓 can be expressed as:
1
tanh 𝑚𝐿 2ℎ 2
𝜂𝑓 = where 𝑚 = and 𝑡 is fin thickness
𝑚𝐿 𝑘𝑡

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Summary

• In this lesson we introduced the concept of heat exchangers and discussed their types and
applications.
• We talked about the definition of the overall heat transfer coefficient and how it can be computed.
• We also looked at how the build up of depositions on heat transfer surfaces affects the heat transfer
and can be accounted in the calculations using the fouling factor.
• Lastly, we analyzed the effect of adding fins on the overall heat transfer coefficient and discussed the
overall surface efficiency.

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