Heat exchanger temperature effect

When designing a high-pressure heat exchanger, the effect of thermal stress must be analyzed. For the axial direction, differential temperatures may require a fiexihle element in order to limit the resulting stresses and avoid leakage of the connections. 

The LMTD, ie, logarithmic mean temperature difference, is an effective overall temperature difference between the two fluids for heat transfer and is a function of the terminal temperature differences at both ends of the heat exchanger. 

For heat exchangers other than the parallel and counterflow types, the basic heat-transfer equations, and particularly the effective fluid-to-fluid temperature differences, become very complex (5). For simplicity, however, the basic heat-transfer equation for general flow arrangement may be written as... 

The importance of equations 37—39 is that once the heat-exchanger effectiveness, S, is known for a given heat exchanger, one can compute the actual heat-transfer rate and outlet stream temperatures from specified inlet conditions. This process is known as rating a given heat exchanger. 

Fypass Flow Effects. There are several bypass flows, particularly on the sheUside of a heat exchanger, and these include a bypass flow between the tube bundle and the shell, bypass flow between the baffle plate and the shell, and bypass flow between the shell and the bundle outer shroud. Some high temperature nuclear heat exchangers have shrouds inside the shell to protect the shell from thermal transient effects. The effect of bypass flow is the degradation of the exchanger thermal performance. Therefore additional heat-transfer surface area must be provided to compensate for this performance degradation. 

Entrance andExit SpanXireas. The thermal design methods presented assume that the temperature of the sheUside fluid at the entrance end of aU tubes is uniform and the same as the inlet temperature, except for cross-flow heat exchangers. This phenomenon results from the one-dimensional analysis method used in the development of the design equations. In reaUty, the temperature of the sheUside fluid away from the bundle entrance is different from the inlet temperature because heat transfer takes place between the sheUside and tubeside fluids, as the sheUside fluid flows over the tubes to reach the region away from the bundle entrance in the entrance span of the tube bundle. A similar effect takes place in the exit span of the tube bundle (12). 

The highly exothermic nature of the butane-to-maleic anhydride reaction and the principal by-product reactions require substantial heat removal from the reactor. Thus the reaction is carried out in what is effectively a large multitubular heat exchanger which circulates a mixture of 53% potassium nitrate [7757-79-1/, KNO 40% sodium nitrite [7632-00-0], NaN02 and 7% sodium nitrate [7631-99-4], NaNO. Reaction tube diameters are kept at a minimum 25—30 mm in outside diameter to faciUtate heat removal. Reactor tube lengths are between 3 and 6 meters. The exothermic heat of reaction is removed from the salt mixture by the production of steam in an external salt cooler. Reactor temperatures are in the range of 390 to 430°C. Despite the rapid circulation of salt on the shell side of the reactor, catalyst temperatures can be 40 to 60°C higher than the salt temperature. The butane to maleic anhydride reaction typically reaches its maximum efficiency (maximum yield) at about 85% butane conversion. Reported molar yields are typically 50 to 60%. 

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