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Compact Heat Exchangers

Compact heat exchangers of plate- and tube-fin types, tube bundles with small
diameters, and regenerative type are generally used for applications where
gas flows.

A heat exchanger having a surface area density greater than about

700 m2/m3 is quite arbitrarily referred to as a compact heat exchanger.

The heat transfer surface area is increased by fins to increase the surface area
per unit volume and there are many variations available.

A heat exchanger is referred to as a micro-heat exchanger if the surface area

density is above 10,000 m2/m3.

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Compact heat exchangers are widely used in industry especially as gas to-gas or
liquid-to-gas heat exchangers; some examples are vehicular heat exchangers,
condensers and evaporators in air-conditioning and refrigeration industry, aircraft
oil coolers, automotive radiators, oil coolers, unit air heaters, intercoolers of
compressors, and aircraft and space applications.

Compact heat exchangers are also used in cryogenics process, electronics,

energy recovery, conservation and conversion, and other industries.

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Heat Transfer Enhancement

The main thermal hydraulic objective of compact heat exchangers is to produce more
efficient heat exchange equipment for minimizing cost, which is to reduce the physical size
of a heat exchanger for a given duty.

In heat exchangers, depending on the application, plain or enhanced/augmented heat

transfer surfaces are used; either the heat transfer coefficient is increased or the surface
is augmented. The main goal is to obtain high heat transfer rates under the specifed
conditions.

Heat transfer between a wall and the fluid is given by

The ratio of the hA of an augmented surface to that of a plain

surface is defined as the enhancement ratio, which is

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There are several methods to increase the hA value:

1. The heat transfer coefficient can be increased without an appreciable

increase in the surface area. (h )
2. The surface area can be increased without appreciable changes in
the heat transfer coefficient. (A )
3. Both the heat transfer coefficient and the surface area can be
increased. ( h and A )

Finned-tube geometries used with circular tubes: (a) plate fin-and-tube used for gases;
(b) individually finned tubes; (c) plainfin and offsetfin

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Heat transfer from a finned surface (augmented) is given by

or

where

where A is the total surface area of the finned surface.

The total heat transfer rate, Q, between the fluids can be determined from

The term 1/UA is the overall thermal resistance, which is expressed by

which includes fouling on both sides of the heat exchanger surface. The fouling
characteristics of an enhanced surface must be considered.

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As can be seen from equations, the performance of the heat exchanger will be increased
if the UA term is increased or the overall thermal resistance is reduced.

It can be seen from the above, that the increased UA term will contribute to the following:

1. Reduction of the size of the heat exchanger: if the heat duty is kept constant, under the
same temperature conditions, the length of the heat exchanger may be reduced. If the
length and the inlet temperatures are kept constant, then the heat exchange rate will
increase.
2. If the heat duty Q and the total length L are kept constant, then ΔTm may be reduced. This
provides increased thermodynamic process efficiency (the second law efficiency) and
yields lower system operational cost.
3. For fixed heat duty, Q, the pumping power can be reduced. However, this will dictate that
the enhanced heat exchanger operate at a smaller velocity than the plain surface. This will
require increased frontal area.

Selection of one of the above improvements will depend on the objectives of designing the heat
exchanger. The most important factor, in general, is the size reduction, which results in cost reduction.

There are various techniques used for heat transfer enhancement, which are segregated in two
groups:

(1) the active techniques that require external power to the surface (surface vibration, acoustic, or
electric field), and
(2) the passive techniques, which use specific surface geometries with surface augmentation, which is
the case generally applied in designing compact heat exchangers; the heat transfer coefficient
may or may not be increased

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The heat transfer coefficient of an enhanced surface, which is given by the Colburn modulus,
J, and frictional factor of the surface, f, are usually presented as a function of the Reynolds
number (DhG/μ):

The friction factor of an enhanced surface in a single-phase flow is higher than the smooth
surface when operated at the same Reynolds number.

Therefore, the enhanced surface would be allowed to operate at a higher pressure drop.

The plain surface would give a higher heat transfer coefficient if it were also allowed to
operate at a higher velocity, giving the same pressure drop as the enhanced surface.

Therefore, the actual performance improvement cannot be obtained by calculating h/hp and
f/fp at the same Reynolds number (at equal velocities).

Performance evaluation allows us to make a simple surface performance comparison

between the thermal resistances of both fluid streams. The performance analysis allows the
designer to quickly identify the most effective surface or other enhancement techniques of
variable choices.

If one of the fluids in the heat exchanger undergoes a phase change, then this exchanger
is called a two-phase heat exchanger. Some of the examples are evaporators, boilers,
reboilers, and condensers. In two-phase flow heat exchangers, pressure drop of phase-
changing fluid may affect the mean temperature difference in the heat exchanger, and the
performance evaluation must take this effect into account. In a single-phase flow, the
reduced pumping power can be considered an objective function, which is not applicable to
the two-phase flow situation.

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Plate-Fin Heat exchangers

In this type, each channel is defined by two parallel plates separated by fins or spacers. Fins or
spacers are sandwiched between parallel plates or formed tubes. Examples of compact plate
heat exchangers are shown in Figure. Fins are attached to the plates by brazing, soldering,
adhesive bonding, welding, mechanical fit, or extrusion.

Alternate fluid passages are connected in parallel by end heads to form two sides of a heat
exchanger. Fins are employed on both sides in gas-to-gas heat exchangers. In gas-to-liquid heat
exchanger applications, fins are usually employed only on the gas side where the heat transfer
coefficient is lower; if fins are employed on the liquid side, the fins provided a structural strength.

The fins used in a plate heat exchanger may be plain and straight fins, plain but wavy
fins, or interrupted fins such as strip, louver, and perforated fins.

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Tube-Fin Heat exchangers

In a tube-fin exchanger, round, rectangular, and elliptical tubes are used and fins are
employed either on the outside, the inside, or both the outside and the inside of the tubes,
depending upon the application.

In a gas-to-liquid heat exchanger, the gas-side heat transfer coefficient is very low
compared with the liquid-side heat transfer coefficient; therefore, no fins are needed on
the liquid side.

In some applications, fins are also used inside the tubes. The liquids flow in the tube side,
which can accommodate high pressures. Tube-fin heat exchangers are less compact than
plate fin heat exchangers. Examples of tube-fin heat exchangers are shown in Figure.

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Heat Transfer

As outlined earlier, compact heat exchangers are available in a wide variety of configurations of
the heat transfer matrix. Their heat transfer and pressure-drop characteristics have been studied
by Kays and London.

The heat transfer and pressure-drop characteristics of various configurations for use as compact
heat exchangers are determined experimentally.

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There are three dimensionless groups governing these correlations, which are the Stanton,
Prandtl, and Reynolds numbers:

where G is the mass velocity or mass flux, defined as

m is the total mass flow rate of fluid, and Amin is the minimum free-flow cross-sectional area,
regardless of where this minimum occurs.

where L is the flow length of the exchanger matrix, LAmin is the minimum free flow passage
volume, and A is the total heat transfer area.

Once the Reynolds number for flow is known, the heat transfer coefficient (Colburn
modules) and the friction factor, f, for flow across the matrix can be evaluated.

The overall heat transfer coefficient based on the gas-side surface area in a gas–
liquid heat exchanger neglecting fouling effects can be written from

where ηo is the outside overall surface efficiency, defined as

and At (=Au + Af) is the total external air-side surface area.

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The overall heat transfer coefficient based on the internal surface area becomes

If both sides are finned,

Generally, an increase in the number of fins per centimeter will increase the
conductance by increasing the ratio At/Ai. Also, the use of more closely spaced fins
will increase the heat transfer coefficient, ho, because of a smaller hydraulic
diameter. Alternatively, the use of a special fin configuration, such as a wavy fin,
will produce a higher heat transfer coefficient. The outside surface efficiency, ηo , is
influenced by the fin thickness, thermal conductivity, and fin length. The fin
efficiency, ηf , may be calculated from appropriate graphs or equations given in
most heat transfer textbooks.

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Pressure drop for Finned-Tube exchangers

For flow normal to finned-tube banks, the total pressure drop, namely, the difference
between the pressures at the inlet and outlet, is given by Kays and London:

where

In this equation, ρ is the average density evaluated at the average temperature

between the inlet and outlet, or it can also be estimated by averaging the fluid-
specific volume between the inlet and outlet.

Pressure drop for Plate-Fin exchangers

The total pressure drop for flow across the heat exchanger matrix is given as

The first term inside the bracket shows the entrance effect, the second term shows
the flow acceleration effect, the third term shows the core friction, and the last
term represents the exit effect.

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