A heat exchanger is basically a system designed for transferring heat between two substances, especially fluids. You can use these heat exchangers in both the heating and cooling processes. However, you may keep those different fluids separately in order to prevent mixing or may keep them in direct contact with each other.
What are Heat Exchangers?
You may utilize these heat exchangers in various systems such as refrigeration, air conditioning, space heating, petrochemical plants, power stations, petroleum refineries, chemical plants, sewage treatment, and natural gas processing. However, you can find the classic heat exchanger mechanism in an internal combustion engine where engine coolant (circulating fluid) flows through the radiator coils.
Generally, heat exchangers comprise different mechanisms depending upon the type of heat exchangers, such as liquid to gas, gas to gas, or liquid to liquid. This process usually occurs through any solid wall, preventing mixing of the substances or direct contact with fluids.
Types of Heat Exchangers
Depending upon the type of construction materials, design characteristics, flow configurations, heat transfer mechanisms, you can classify the type of every heat exchanger. Dolphin Company Dubai aims to provide its customers with the best range of heat exchangers according to their requirements. Following are the most popular and major types of heat exchangers available in the industry.
1. Shell and Tube Heat Exchangers
These shell and tube heat exchangers generally contain a large number of tiny tubes. The manufacturers place these small tubes inside a cylindrical shell. You can place all these tubes within a cylinder by using a tube stack. This tube stack has a few fixed tube plates, allowing the bundle of tubes to contract and expand with changing heat conditions. You can also remove this tube bundle easily for maintenance and servicing.
2. Air Cooled Heat Exchanger
This heat exchanger is most commonly used in automobiles and various other mobile applications. Because there is no permanent cool water source available in these systems. Dolphin radiators UAE Company is designing specialized cooling packs which consist of an oil cooler and an engine jacket water cooler. It charges an air cooler into a single unit while improving efficiency and reducing space requirements. Cooler air is produced by the airflow caused by the movement of the automobile.
3. Plate Type Heat Exchangers
These Plate heat exchangers perform in a way more similar to the tube heat exchanger by using a range of stacked plates instead of tiny tubes. These plate heat exchangers are often gasketed or brazed depending on the type of fluids and application used in the process. The manufacturers often manufacture these heat exchangers by using compact stainless steel, which makes them a perfect option for refrigerators or food processing.
How to Design a Heat Exchanger?
Before choosing the best type of heat exchanger, there are certain key factors you need to consider, which are as follows.
- The type of primary circuit fluid, flow rate and temperature (often the hot fluid)
- What you actually want to get out of the circuit (Target outlet temperature or heat dissipation)
- Type of Secondary circuit fluid, flow rate and temperature (that is usually coolant)
The factors as mentioned above are just the fundamentals. While putting a query, the clients should inform the manufacturer about special requirements and pressure loss limitations as well.
Marine Heat Exchanger
Marine Heat Exchangers are mainly designed for freshwater, and their operating principles are the same as a cooler. The designer of marine heat exchangers mainly focuses on a specific factor which says that a marine heat exchanger should be resilient to corrosion and erosion caused by the seawater. It indicates that substances that come into contact with the sea water should be suitable enough, like 70/30 Cupro Nickel, Titanium and Bronze.
While designing a marine heat exchanger, the manufacturers should consider certain things. Velocity is one of the most common and significant concerns. If the velocity of the system is way too low, then sand and other solid particles will eventually block these tubes. On the other hand, if the velocity is very high, then those particles will erode the tubes and tube plate.
If you want to prevent this corrosion, you may improve the protection level by the installation of a sacrificial anode. You can also incorporate this anode into your system as per your requirement or special request. It will be sited into a threaded hole that is in direct contact with the seawater and is usually utilized for a drain plug.
Advantages of using Heat Exchangers
Moreover, you can find these heat exchanges in various sizes and shapes. These different types of heat exchangers mainly involve a variety of heat transfer mechanisms that depend upon a given application’s requirement.
These heat exchangers are highly flexible as they can easily fit into any design virtually, making them more versatile and beneficial. Following are the top benefits of using heat exchangers.
Lower Impact on Environment
All heat exchangers should run continuously to perform effectively and ensure that all those high-powered panels are not overheating. One of the foremost benefits of using heat exchangers is that they do not require any additional equipment to operate, such as air compressing or air conditioning units.
Moreover, they always need less energy for proper functioning and produce almost zero pollution compared to other traditional cooling methods.
Smaller 3-D Footprint
Due to the latest technological advancement, more powerful means too small such as small personal devices, versatile and smaller manufacturing equipment and much more. The reduction of space in electrical units can increase the chance of heat pockets, resulting in damaging electrical components. It ultimately enhances the demand for more versatile, smaller and efficient cooling solutions such as heat exchangers.
Low Operating Costs
However, these heat exchangers do not utilize complex equipment, as they aim to reduce the level of contamination. Therefore, they do not require high maintenance as often as the air conditioning systems. These heat exchangers do not break down and generally have higher durability as they can last for many times longer than air conditioning units.
Conclusion
Heat exchangers play a key role in regulating the temperature of fluids inside processing systems to meet requirements for filling operations, pasteurization, and the safety of beverages, food, and pharmaceutical components. These heat exchangers aim to eliminate microorganisms in order to make food products safe to consume.
