HEAT

EXCHANGER
Saurabh Meshram
Asst. Prof.
Chemcial Engg. Deptt., ITGGV
Bilaspur
 Classification

• Direct or Indirect
• Tubular, Extended Surface, Plate or Regenerative
• Single Pass or Multi Pass
• Non-compact (<700m2/m3) or Compact
(>700m2/m3)
 Based upon function
• Cooler- to cool process fluid
• Condenser- to condense vapor
• Chiller- to cool beyond cooler by coolant
• Exchanger- to exchange heat b/w fluids
• Heater- to impart sensible heat to a process fluid
• Reboiler- to meet the latent heat requirement at bottom of
D.C.
• Vaporiser- to vaporises part of the liquid
• Waste heat boiler- to produce steam using hot stream
• Evaporator- to concentrate the solution
 Double Pipe HE

•Used where flow rates of the fluids and heat duty are
small (<500 kW)
•Suitable for high pressure services
•Heat transfer area requirement is low
 Shell and Tube HE
•For variety of industrial services where a large heat
transfer surfaces are required shell & tube heat
exchanger are commonly used.
 Shell
• It is usually a cylindrical casing through which one of
the fluid flows in one or .
• Shell is commonly made of carbon steel.
• The minimum thickness of shell made of carbon steel
varies from 5mm to 11mm depending upon the diameter.
• It may be cut to the required length from a standard pipe
upto 60 cm diameter or
• fabricated by rolling a metal plate suitable dimension
into a cylinder and welding along the length.
 Tubes
• Tubes are providing the HT surface.
• Variety of materials including low carbon steel, stainless
steel, copper, brass, aluminium , etc are used as tube
material.
• Outside diameter of tubes vary from 6 mm to 40 mm.
• The tubes with OD 19 mm to 25 mm are very common.
• The tube lengths used are 0.5, 2.5, 3,4,5 and 6 m.
• It depends upon the material of construction and diameter.
• The tubes that are placed in a tube bundle inside the shell
are either rolled or welded to the tube sheet.
• Tube side fluid first enters a channel through and then
through the tubes in one or multi pass fashion.
 Tube Pitch
• The shortest center-to-center distance between the
adjacent tubes is called the tube pitch.
• Tubes are generally arranged in square or triangular pitch
manner.
• The shortest distance between the two tubes is called the
clearance.
•The minimum pitch is 1.25 times the outside diameter of
tube.
•The clearance should not be less than 0.25 times the
outside diameter of tube, the minimum clearance being 4.76
mm.
- Square pitch arrangement permits easy external cleaning of
the tubes and causes low pressure drop on the shell die fluid.
- If the fluid are clean, a triangular pitch arrangement is used.
- Triangular Pitch arrangement can accommodate large
number of tubes in a given shell diameter than with a square
pitch and usually creates a large turbulence in the shell side
fluid.
 Baffles
• Baffles are commonly employed within the shell to increase the rate
of heat transfer by increasing the turbulence of shell side fluid and
also provides supports for the tubes and act as dampers against
vibration.
• The center-to-center distance between adjacent baffles is known as
baffle spacing of baffle pitch.
• Baffle spacing should not be greater than the inside diameter of the
shell and should not be less than one-fifth of the inside diameter of the
shell.
• The optimum baffle spacing is 0.3 to 0.5 times the shell diameter.
• Segmental, disc and ring, orifice baffles are used.
 Segmental baffle
-Segmental baffle is commonly used. It is drilled circular disc
of sheet metal with one side cut away. When the height of the
baffle is 75% of the inside diameter of the shell it is called as
25% cut segmental baffle.
-25% cut segmental baffle is the optimum one giving good
heat transfer rates without an excessive pressure drop.
- Baffle thickness usually ranges from 3mm to 6mm.
Tie Rod: are used to hold the baffles in place, spacers to position the
baffles. Tie rods are fixed at one end in the tube shee by making
blind holes. Usually 4 to 6 tie rods with at least 10 mm diameter are
necessary.

Tube Sheet: It is essentially a flat circular plate with a provision for

making gasketed joint, around a periphery. A large number of holes
are drilled in the tube sheet according to the pitch requirements.
Tube sheet thickness ranges from 6 to 25.4 mm.
 Shell side and tube side passes
• With the help of passes we can change the direction flow in the shell
and tubes.
• Passes are generally used to obtain higher velocities and long paths for
a fluid to travel without increasing the length of the exchanger, that
leads to high heat transfer area.
• Single or two pass is used in shell side.
• One, two, four, six upto 12 passes used in tube side.
• Passes in tube side are formed by partitions placed in the shell cover
and channels.
• When we use single pass partition on the tube side, the tube side fluid
flows twice through the exchanger with equal number of tubes in each
pass.
• Multi pass construction decreases the cross section of the fluid path
that increases the fluid velocity which in turn increases the HTC. But
these have certain disadvantages such as more complicated
constructions and high friction losses.
Single Pass Multi Pass

Simple in construction Complex in construction

The flow may be parallel or Flow is parallel as well as

counter current counter current
Relatively inexpensive Expensive

HTC is relatively low High HTC

Floor space requirement is Floor space requirement is

high low
Friction losses are low Friction losses are high

Easier to assemble, difficult

dismantle and clean
Tube passes
 Guidelines for directing fluids
• As the shell side of HE is difficult to clean,
the least corrosive and cleanest fluid should
admitted in the shell.
• The scale forming fluids should always be
directed through tubes.
• To improve the HT characteristics dealing
with a viscous liquid, the viscous liquid
should be introduced on the shell side as
baffles induce the turbulence.
 CLASSIFICATION

The shell & tube heat exchanger are classified as

1. Fixed tube sheet type
2. Floating head type
3. U-tube type
 FIXED TUBE SHEET HEAT
EXCHANGER

*Used when the shell side fluid is clean and non fouling,
because tube bundle can not be removed for cleaning.
* Cheapest and easy to fabricate.
 FLOATING HEAD TYPE

*Tubes are fixed in a floating tube sheet at one end and in a

stationary tube sheet at the other end.
*Widely used in chemical industries and petroleum refineries.
 U TUBE TYPE

*Commonly used for reboiler on large fractionating

column, where steam is condensed in the tubes.
 Kettle Reboiler

•To provide vapor space above a tube bundle, a shell is made

larger in diameter.
 Plate Heat Exchanger
• It consists of a series of rectangular, parallel and corrugated plates
held firmly together between substantial head frames.
• The plates have corner ports and are sealed and spaced by rubber
gaskets around the ports and along the plate edges.
• These plates serve as the HT surfaces and are of stainless steel.
• Corrugated plates provide a high degree of turbulence even at low
flow rates.
• Gap between plates is 1.3 to 1.5 mm.
• It is provided with inlet and outlet nozzles for fluid at the ends.
• Hot fluid passes between alternate pairs of plates, transferring heat
to a cold fluid in the adjacent spaces.
• The plates can be readily separated for cleaning and the HT area
can be increased by simply adding more plates.
• As it is very compact, requires very small floor space.
• High HTC, easy to clean
• PHE are competitive with S&T HE where
the corrosive fluid is to be handled.
• Heat sensitive material, where the
temperature control is required, these units
are used.