Heat exchanger headers

The presence of tubercles generally increases the roughness of the metal surface that in turn increases the resistance to fluid flow. Large tubercles may break loose from the surface as a result of shear stress, and become lodged in downstream equipment such as heat exchanger header boxes. 

A numerical study of the effect of area ratio on the flow distribution in parallel flow manifolds used in a Hquid cooling module for electronic packaging demonstrate the useflilness of such a computational fluid dynamic code. The manifolds have rectangular headers and channels divided with thin baffles, as shown in Figure 12. Because the flow is laminar in small heat exchangers designed for electronic packaging or biochemical process, the inlet Reynolds numbers of 5, 50, and 250 were used for three different area ratio cases, ie, AR = 4, 8, and 16. 

Fixed-Tube-Sheet Heat Exchang ers Fixed-tube-sheet exchangers (Fig. 11-36Z ) are used more often than any other type, and the frequency of use has been increasing in recent years. The tube sheets are welded to the shell. Usually these extend beyond the shell and serve as flanges to which the tube-side headers are bolted. This construction requires that the shell and tube-sheet materials be weldable to each other. 

U-Tube Heat Excbajiger (Fig. 11-36J) The tube bundle consists of a stationaiy tube sheet, U tubes (or hairpin tubes), baffles or support plates, and appropriate tie rods and spacers. The tube bundle can be removed from the heat-exchanger shell. A tube-side header (stationary head) and a shell with integr shell cover, which is welded to the shell, are provided. Each tube is free to expand or contract without any limitation being placed upon it by the other tubes. 

Water hammer can also occur in steam mains, condensate return lines, and heat exchange equipment where steam entrapment can take place (Fig. I). A coil constructed and installed as shown here, except with just a steam trap at the outlet, permits steam from the control valve to be directed through the center tube(s) first. Steam then gets into the return header before the top and bottom tubes are filled with steam. Consequently, these top and bottom tubes are fed with steam from both ends. Waves of condensate are moved toward each other from both ends, and steam can be trapped between the waves. 

Process flow diagrams are more complex and show all main flow streams including valves to enhance the understanding of the process as well as pressures and temperatures on all feed and product lines within all major vessels and in and out of headers and heat exchangers, and points of pressure and temperature control. Also, information on construction materials, pump capacities and pressure heads, compressor horsepower, and vessel design pressures and temperatures are shown when necessary for clarity. In addition, process flow diagrams usually show major components of control loops along with key utilities. 

Circulatory systems often use an intermediate header tank, from which the bearings are supplied by gravity. The complete system may comprise, in addition and according to the size of the installation, heat exchangers or coolers, filters, strainers, settling tanks, centrifuges and other purifying equipment. 

NOTE Although superheater, reheater, and economizer heat exchangers all contain either steam or water in their respective tube bundles, they generally are not considered by boiler engineers and designers to be part of the steam-water circulation system s boiler surfaces. This distinction typically is reserved for the various tubes, connecting headers (manifolds), and drums that collectively provide the primary heat transfer and steam-generating facility. 

Closed FW heaters are shell and tube heat exchangers typically designed to contain U-tube bundles expanded or welded into a single, stationary tube sheet (although some designs replace the tube sheet with inlet and outlet box headers). 

Relief header isolation valve left closed during plant startup caused a heat exchanger to rupture. 

Typical areas where titanium has found widespread industrial use in membrane technology are cells, anodes, anolyte headers, anolyte containers, filters, heat exchangers, chlorate removal systems and various parts of the brine system. 

The basic reason for using different control-valve trims is to keep the stability of the control loop fairly constant over a wide range of flows. Linear-trim valves are used, for example, when the pressure drop over the control valve is fairly constant and a linear relationship exists between the controlled variable and the flow rate of the manipulated variable. Consider the flow of steam from a constant-pressure supply header. The steam flows into the shell side of a heat exchanger. A process liquid stream flows through the tube side and is heated by the steam. There is a linear relationship between the process outlet temperature and steam flow (with constant process flow rate and inlet temperature) since every pound of steam provides a certain amount of heat. 

In the past, the principles described have been implicitly recognized in several attempts to convert monolithic catalysts into catalytic heat exchangers. While the use of millimeter dimensions and nanoporous ceramic supports meets the primary criteria already mentioned, the parallel channel structure of monoliths is not ideally tailored for heat exchanger applications, and complex header structures are required to uniformly distribute and collect reaction medium and coolant to and from the individual channels (Figure 9). The unsatisfactory interface between the milli- and macroscale has been a major weakness of such concepts. 

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