heat exchangers
DESCRIPTION
Contains fundamentals of heat exchangersTRANSCRIPT
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Thermodynamics and Propulsion
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Subsections
18.5.1 Simplified Counterflow Heat Exchanger (With Uniform Wall Temperature)18.5.2 General Counterflow Heat Exchanger18.5.3 Efficiency of a Counterflow Heat Exchanger
18.5 Heat Exchangers
The general function of a heat exchanger is to transfer heat from one fluid to another. The basiccomponent of a heat exchanger can be viewed as a tube with one fluid running through it and another fluidflowing by on the outside. There are thus three heat transfer operations that need to be described:
1. Convective heat transfer from fluid to the inner wall of the tube,2. Conductive heat transfer through the tube wall, and3. Convective heat transfer from the outer tube wall to the outside fluid.
Heat exchangers are typically classified according to flow arrangement and type of construction. Thesimplest heat exchanger is one for which the hot and cold fluids move in the same or opposite directionsin a concentric tube (or double-pipe) construction. In the parallel-flow arrangement of Figure 18.8(a), thehot and cold fluids enter at the same end, flow in the same direction, and leave at the same end. In thecounterflow arrangement of Figure 18.8(b), the fluids enter at opposite ends, flow in opposite directions,and leave at opposite ends.
Figure 18.8: Concentric tubes heat exchangers
[Parallel flow] [Counterflow]
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Figure 18.9: Cross-flow heat exchangers.
[Finned with both fluids unmixed.] [Unfinned with one fluid mixed and
the other unmixed]
Alternatively, the fluids may be in cross flow (perpendicular to each other), as shown by the finned andunfinned tubular heat exchangers of Figure 18.9. The two configurations differ according to whether thefluid moving over the tubes is unmixed or mixed. In Figure 18.9(a), the fluid is said to be unmixed because
the fins prevent motion in a direction ( ) that is transverse to the main flow direction ( ). In this case the
fluid temperature varies with and . In contrast, for the unfinned tube bundle of Figure 18.9(b), fluid
motion, hence mixing, in the transverse direction is possible, and temperature variations are primarily inthe main flow direction. Since the tube flow is unmixed, both fluids are unmixed in the finned exchanger,while one fluid is mixed and the other unmixed in the unfinned exchanger.
To develop the methodology for heat exchanger analysis and design, we look at the problem of heattransfer from a fluid inside a tube to another fluid outside.
Figure 18.10: Geometry for heattransfer between two fluids
We examined this problem before in Section 17.2 and found that the heat transfer rate per unit length isgiven by
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(18..21)
Here we have taken into account one additional thermal resistance than in Section 17.2, the resistancedue to convection on the interior, and include in our expression for heat transfer the bulk temperature ofthe fluid, , rather than the interior wall temperature, .
It is useful to define an overall heat transfer coefficient per unit length as
(18..22)
From (18.21) and (18.22) the overall heat transfer coefficient, , is
(18..23)
We will make use of this in what follows.
Figure 18.11: Counterflow heat exchanger
A schematic of a counterflow heat exchanger is shown in Figure 18.11. We wish to know the temperaturedistribution along the tube and the amount of heat transferred.
18.5.1 Simplified Counterflow Heat Exchanger (With Uniform
Wall Temperature)
To address this we start by considering the general case of axial variation of temperature in a tube with
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wall at uniform temperature and a fluid flowing inside the tube (Figure 18.12).
Figure 18.12: Fluid temperature distribution along the tube
with uniform wall temperature
The objective is to find the mean temperature of the fluid at , , in the case where fluid comes in at
with temperature and leaves at with temperature . The expected distribution for
heating and cooling are sketched in Figure 18.12.
For heating ( ), the heat flow from the pipe wall in a length is
where is the pipe diameter. The heat given to the fluid (the change in enthalpy) is given by
where is the density of the fluid, is the mean velocity of the fluid, is the specific heat of the fluid
and is the mass flow rate of the fluid. Setting the last two expressions equal and integrating from the
start of the pipe, we find
Carrying out the integration,
i.e.,
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(18..24)
Equation (18.24) can be written as
where
This is the temperature distribution along the pipe. The exit temperature at is
(18..25)
The total heat transfer to the wall all along the pipe is
(18..26)
From Equation (18.25),
The total rate of heat transfer is therefore
or
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(18..27)
where is the logarithmic mean temperature difference, defined as
(18..28)
The concept of a logarithmic mean temperature difference is useful in the analysis of heat exchangers.We will define a logarithmic mean temperature difference for the general counterflow heat exchangerbelow.
18.5.2 General Counterflow Heat Exchanger
We return to our original problem, to Figure 18.11, and write an overall heat balance between the twocounterflowing streams as
From a local heat balance, the heat given up by stream in length x is . (There is a
negative sign since decreases). The heat taken up by stream is . (There is a negative
sign because decreases as increases). The local heat balance is
(18..29)
Solving (18.29) for and , we find
where . Also, where is the overall heat transfer coefficient. We can then say
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Integrating from to gives
(18..30)
Equation (18.30) can also be written as
(18..31)
where
We know that
(18..32)
Thus
Solving for the total heat transfer:
(18..33)
Rearranging (18.30
) allows us to express in terms of other parameters as
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(18..34)
Substituting (18.34) into (18.33) we obtain a final expression for the total heat transfer for a
counterflow heat exchanger:
(18..35)
or
(18..36)
This is the generalization (for non-uniform wall temperature) of our result from Section 18.5.1.
18.5.3 Efficiency of a Counterflow Heat Exchanger
Suppose we know only the two inlet temperatures , , and we need to find the outlet temperatures.
From (18.31),
or, rearranging,
(18..37)
Eliminating from (18.32),
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(18..38)
We now have two equations, (18.37) and (18.38), and two unknowns, and . Solving first for ,
or
(18..39)
where is the efficiency of a counterflow heat exchanger:
(18..40)
Equation 18.39 gives in terms of known quantities. We can use this result in (18.38) to find :
We examine three examples.
1.
can approach zero at cold end.
as , surface area, .
Maximum value of ratio
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Maximum value of ratio .
2.
is negative, as
Maximum value of ratio
Maximum value of ratio .
3.
temperature difference remains uniform, .
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