Copper tube heat exchanger
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Design pressure: 1.9 MPa for the shell side, 1.0 MPa for the tube side； Design temperature: 150°C for the shell side, 40°C for the tube side℃ ； Medium: R22 in the shell side, water in the tube side. It is now required to replace the heat exchange tubes with copper tubes and expand them to the tube sheet. I have no experience with copper tube heat exchangers. What aspects should be taken into consideration when designing and manufacturing such equipment? Can copper tube expansion jointing be used? Thank you!
The copper tubes explicitly cited in 151 can be used as heat exchange tubes without any problem
According to SW6 calculations, the heat exchange tube cannot withstand a negative pressure of 1.9 MPa
Use a tube expander to expand and join the copper tube and the tube sheet.
Are you using pure copper tubes or copper alloy tubes? For the operating conditions you mentioned, generally speaking, copper pipes under 16mm are fine for expansion jointing without grooving.
We have previously worked on a copper tube heat exchanger with operating conditions similar to those you described. Since the tube sheet was made of stainless steel, a pure expansion joint design was used. The steel tubes had a diameter of Φ16, and the tube bundle was of DN500 size; due to the small number of tubes, manual expansion joining was employed, and the results were excellent after that process. Experience: If the tube sheet is made of steel, it is best to use a pure expansion joint design (mechanical expansion grooving is sufficient). If a combination of expansion welding and other methods is used, it is preferable for the tube sheet to be a composite material – with copper as the overlay layer and steel as the underlying layer. Hydraulic expansion is recommended; using mechanical expansion will result in the removal of many copper particles, which can damage the tubes.
Should I use copper tube, brass tube, or bronze tube? There are many types of copper tube expansion devices
Expanding copper pipes is no problem; central air conditioning systems all use this type of structure