Chemical process industries heat exchangers

These historical and fundamental concepts form the foundation for the design, applications, and operations of a major class of equipment that are used throughout the chemical process industries - heat exchange equipment, or heat exchangers. There are many variations of these equipment and a multitude, of... 

Heat-transfer equipment in the form of heat exchangers and condensers is a vital part of the chemical process industries. Heat exchangers are used for the cooling or heating of all sorts of process materials, while condensers are used largely for the condensation of vapors from evaporators and consequent production of vacuum, and for the recovery of materials volatilized from stills. 

Because carbon is difficult to machine, very tittle impervious carbon equipment is made. However, impervious graphite has been accepted as a standard material of constmction by the chemical process industry for the fabrication of process equipment, such as heat exchangers, pumps, valves, towers, pipe, and fittings (9,10). 

The Guidelines for Process Equipment Reliability Data with Data Tables covers a variety of components used in the chemical process industry, including electrical equipment, analyzers, instrumentation and controls, detectors, heat exchangers, piping systems, rotating equipment (pump, compressor, and fan), valves, and fire protection systems. 

There is a close kinship between the chemical process industry and the nuclear electric power industry. In tact once the physics of nuclear reaction was established the rest is chemistiy and hc.it ii an.sfer. The word "reactor" is from chemistry for the location the reaction takes place.. nuclear reactor consists of a vessel in which a nuclear reaction heats water to make steam to drive a turbine o generate electricity. Thus the primary components are pipes, valves, pumps heat exchangers, and water purifiers similar to the components found in a chemical plant. Following the success of WASH-1400, PSA was used to analyze the chemical proce.ssmg of nuclear fuel and. aste preparation for disposal. 

The transfer of heat to and from process fluids is an essential part of most chemical processes. The most commonly used type of heat transfer equipment is the shell and tube heat exchanger. The chemical process industries use four principal types of heat exchanger. 

The chemical process industries use four principal types of heat exchangers. 

Tanks are used in innumerable ways in the chemical process industry, not only to store every conceivable liquid, vapor, or solid, but also in a number of processing applications. For example, as well as reactors, tanks have served as the vessels for various unit operations such as settling, mixing, crystallization (qv), phase separation, and heat exchange. Herein the main focus is on the use of tanks as liquid storage vessels. The principles outlined, however, can generally be applied to tanks in other applications as well as to other pressure-containing equipment. 

For high-pressure applications in the hydrocarbon and chemical processing industries, a titanium compact heat exchanger has been developed by Rolls-Laval. This heat exchanger consists of diffusion-bonded channels that are created by superplastic forming of titanium plates (18). This heat exchanger can handle high pressure and corrosive fluids and is suitable for marine applications. 

To reemphasize, shell-and-tube heat exchangers are the most commonly employed type in the chemical process industries because they are so adaptable to such wide ranges of conditions. 

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