Extruded Al-Mn alloy are used in heat exchanger applications due to their light weight and good thermal conductivity. Depending on the application, the units may be subjected to external corrosion, which can lead to perforation of the tube. The industrial test most commonly used to assess heat exchanger alloys is the seawater acetic acid test (SWAAT). This is a cyclic fog at 40°C and pH 2.9. In the present study, it was found that pits developing in extruded Al-Mn tubes during the SWAAT test are purely crystallographic. Furthermore, a mechanistic understanding for crystallographic pitting has been developed. The SWAAT test can be of relatively long duration and, typically, does not yield information on the underlying corrosion initiation and propagation mechanisms. In the present study, alternate methods to assess pitting corrosion were elaborated. A drop testing procedure has been successfully implemented to study the mechanism of pit initiation. It was revealed that pits initiated within the aluminium matrix in the vicinity of grain boundaries. A close link between large second-phase particles and pit initiation was established. No preferred grain orientation for pit initiation was evident. Scanning electron microscopy and associated tomography were undertaken for the first time to clarify the mechanism of pit propagation. The pit walls were oriented {100}, while the fast-dissolving planes were {110} and {111}. The findings were in accordance with previous literature. Corrosion penetrated deeper into the alloy when the corrosion front was close to a grain boundary. Pit walls were cathodic to the aluminium matrix, possibly due to enrichment of alloying elements at pit walls. The effect of alloy additions on the corrosion behaviour of extruded aluminium alloys was investigated. Alloys with varying copper, iron and manganese contents were compared. Shot noise analysis and post-mortem analyses were undertaken. The increased amount of manganese in solid solution delayed the transition from micropits to stable pitting. This delay is attributable to second-phase particles that are less cathodic to the aluminium matrix in alloys with increased manganese content. Increasing copper decreased the size of the dissolved polyhedra during stable pitting. Furthermore, pits propagated faster in alloys rich in copper. This could be attributed to an increased level of copper enrichment at the pit walls. Finally, more second-phase particles were present in alloys with increased iron levels. Additionally, pits located in those alloys propagated deeper than pits located in alloys with low levels of iron. A competition between two different types of cathodes, enrichment layer and second-phase particles, is suggested. In conclusion, the effect of microstructure and alloy additions on the corrosion mechanism for crystallographic pitting developed during the project was clarified.

In this study, the techno-economic feasibility of converting an existing process steam plant into a combined heat and power plant, using an external solar thermal field as the additional heat source was studied. Technical feasibility entailed designing a suitable heat exchanger, which uses hot oil from the solar field to raise the steam conditions from dry saturated to superheated. The solar field was sized to heat a selected heat transfer fluid to its maximum attainable temperature. A suitable turbine-alternator was chosen which can meet the required plant power demand. For this to be a success, the processes which require process steam were analysed and a MathCAD model was created to design the heat exchanger and check turbine output using the equations adapted from various thermodynamics and power plant engineering texts, together with the Standards for the Tubular Exchanger Manufacturer's Association. The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory system advisor model was used to size the suitable solar field. A financial model was developed in Excel to check the economic feasibility of the project, using discounted payback period as the economic indicator. It was found out that amongst loan interest rates, variation of system output and the electricity output, the profitability of the project was largely influenced by the electricity tariff. An optimum size for the heat exchanger of 30ft was established from the sensitivity analysis and it was concluded that the project is currently not economically viable on an independent investor financing model, unless either the electricity tariff improves or the solar thermal energy and turbine technology costs decrease.

yes / The thermal behavior of aluminium oxide-water nanofluid in a double pipe carbon steel heat exchanger was investigated in the present study. The overall heat transfer coefficient, Nusselt, and heat transfer coefficient of nanofluid were compared with the base fluid. The volume fraction of the nanoparticles was 1%. By adding nanoparticles to the fluid, the thermal properties of the base fluid improved significantly. The hot and cold fluid flow was considered counter-current, and the nanofluid was pumped into the inner tube and once into the outer tube, and the flow rate of each fluid was 0.05 kg/s. The convective heat transfer and the overall heat transfer coefficient enhanced 94% and 253% for the hot fluid flow in the outer tube and 308 % and 144% for the hot fluid flow in the inner tube, respectively. The pressure drop calculations also showed that the pressure drop would not change significantly when using nanofluid.

No / The synthesis of heat exchanger network (HEN) is a comprehensive approach to optimize energy utilization in process industry. Recent developments in HEN synthesis (HENS) present several heuristic methods, such as Simulated Annealing (SA), Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Differential Evolution (DE). In this work, DE method for synthesis and optimization of HEN has been presented. Using DE combined with the concept of super-targeting, the ΔTmin optimization is determined. Then DE algorithm is employed to optimize the global cost function including the constraints, such as heat balance, the temperatures of process streams. A case study has been optimized using DE, generated structure of HEN and compared with networks obtained by other methods such as pinch technology or mathematical programming. Through the result, the proposed method has been illustrated that DE is able to apply in HEN optimization, with 16.7% increase in capital cost and 56.4%, 18.9% decrease in energy, global costs respectively.

No description available.

Compact heat exchangers are usually characterized by a large heat transfer surface per unit of volume. These characteristics are useful when thermal energy between two or more fluids must be exchanged without mixing. Most compact heat exchangers are liquid-to-air heat exchangers, with approximately 85% of the total thermal resistance occurring on the air side of the heat exchanger. To reduce the space and weight of a compact heat exchanger, augmentation strategies must be proposed to reduce the air side resistance. However, before any strategies to augment the air side heat transfer can be proposed, a thorough insight of the current mechanisms that govern air side heat transfer is required. The tube wall heat transfer results presented in this paper were obtained both experimentally and computationally for a typical compact heat exchanger design. Both isothermal and constant heat flux tube walls were studied. For the experimental investigation, a scaled-up model of the louvered fin-tube wall was tested in a flow facility. Although computational results for the isothermal tube wall are shown, control of the experimental isothermal tube wall proved to be unrealistic and only heat transfer measurements along the constant heat flux tube wall were made. For the constant heat flux tube wall, reasonable agreement has been achieved between the measurements and the steady, three-dimensional computational predictions. The results of the study showed that high heat transfer coefficients existed at the entrance to the louver array as well as in the louver reversal region. Vortices created at the leading edge of the louvers augmented heat transfer by thinning the tube wall boundary layer. Results indicate that an augmentation ratio of up to 3 times can occur for a tube wall of a louvered fin compact heat exchanger as compared to a flat plate. / Master of Science

This study presents an optimization approach to heat exchanger network synthesis (HENS). HENs are widely used in industry and bring several fluid streams into their desired temperatures by using available heat in the process for efficient usage of energy. Our aim is to provide a network design coupled with a detailed equipment design for heat exchangers. The suggested approach involves discretization of temperatures based on heat load equalities and reformulation as a shortest-path problem, rather than dealing with a nonlinear model and a previously structured HEN, which are common methods in the literature. We generate a shortest path network whose every node corresponds to a heat exchanger alternative and each path represents a HEN design alternative. A mixed-integer nonlinear programming model is solved to design each exchanger alternative in detail, considering all thermo-physical and transport properties of streams at their temperatures and pressures. Our approach has modeling flexibility and successfully finds the required number of heat exchangers and their connections. In addition, one can control the solution quality by deciding on the heat load steps between stream inlet and outlets. Several HEN examples from the literature are solved to assess the performance of our approach and comparable results are obtained.

With increasing global energy consumption, stringent environmental protection legislation and safety regulations in industrialised nations, energy saving has been put under high priority. One of the most efficient ways of energy reduction is through heat transfer enhancement for additional heat recovery. Applying compact heat exchanger is one of the main strategies of heat transfer enhancement. However, the application of compact heat exchangers is prohibited by the lack of design methodology. Therefore, the aim of this research is to tackle the problem of developing optimisation methodologies of plate/plate-fin heat exchanger design. A mathematical model of plate-fin heat exchanger design is proposed to consider fin type selection with detailed geometry and imposed constraints simultaneously. The concept of mix-and-match fin type combinations is put forward to include all possible fin type combinations in a heat exchanger. The mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model can be converted to a nonlinear programming (NLP) model by employing continuous heat transfer and pressure drop correlations and considering the basic fin geometric parameters as continuous variables. The whole optimisation is based on volumetric minimisation or capital cost minimisation and completed by CONOPT solver in GAMS. Case studies are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and benefits of the new proposed methodology. For plate heat exchangers, the design methodology is developed on the basis of plate-fin heat exchanger methodology, and takes phase change, plate pattern selection, flow arrangement and pressure drop constraints simultaneously. The phase change problem is tackled by dividing the whole process into several subsections and considering constant physical properties in each subsection. The performances of various flow arrangements are evaluated by correction factors of logarithmic mean temperature difference. For two-phase conditions, the heat transfer and pressure drop performance are predicted by continuous two-phase Nusselt number and Fanning friction factor correlations to avoid the MINLP problem. The optimisation is solved by CONOPT solver as well. The feasibility and accuracy of the new proposed methodology is examined by case studies.

This master’s thesis deals with the design and manufacture of a heat exchanger with polymeric hollow fibers for a Formula Student vehicle. The work can be divided into three parts. The first part contains a review of heat transfer and heat exchangers, the second part deals with polymeric fiber heat exchangers design and manufacture of of polymeric hollow fibers heat exchanger with a heat exchanger for a Formula Student vehicle. The last part deals with the comparison of polymeric hollow fibers heat exchanger with the original aluminum heat exchanger and the evaluation of the measurement results.

No description available.