A Personal View – Things Related to the Structural Design of Heat Exchangers (Introduction)

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This post was last edited by yuqinglin876 on 2021-2-18 at 10:24. Although I have been working in equipment design for several decades, I haven’t dealt with heat exchangers very often; I just want to share some thoughts. Because I’ve read some materials, and although they are equipment design manuals, they provide only minimal information on structural design, which leaves one at a loss; moreover, I think some of their statements are incorrect. Therefore, I would like to share my insights here, trying to clarify some common issues and address them in a quantitative manner as much as possible. I’m not an expert, but I won’t deceive you; consider this just my personal opinion or a single perspective. Discussions are welcome here, and I especially hope that experts will participate, as well as those with expertise in related processes, so that we can figure out the relevant issues. However, there is one condition: from today (2021.2.18) until March 1, 2021, if anyone is interested in those matters, please leave a message; once 30 people do so, I will talk about it. No one is interested, or very few are, so I won’t bother with it. The content is roughly as follows: (Scope: 151 heat exchangers, with floating-head heat exchangers being the main focus, as once these are understood, the rest becomes easier.) 1. Determination of various flow areas and their relationships: Pipe inlet area A1 (the area of the pipe inlet diameter); Shell inlet area A2 (the flow area between the cylindrical surface of the shell within the pipe inlet diameter range and the tube bundle, anti-scour plates, or guide cylinders, with a saddle-shaped cylindrical area at the top). This includes cases with and without anti-scour plates, as well as inner and outer guide cylinders. The flow area outside the inner guide cylinder, the flow area at the end of the inner guide cylinder, the area of gaps in the inner baffle plates, the area of gaps in irregular baffle plates, the area of gaps in standard arc-shaped baffle plates, and the outlet area when there are slide plates. 2. Design schemes for the tube bundle: Determination of the axial dimensions at the shell circuit inlet and outlet; determination of the spacing and number of baffle plates; influence of the direction of baffle plate gaps; decision regarding whether to use end support plates; situations in which inner guide cylinders and anti-scour plates are used; situations in which the guide cylinders have inclined edges; maximum and minimum dimensions of the guide cylinders; relationship between gaps in inner baffle plates and standard arc-shaped baffle plates; determination of the position of tie rods. 3. Determination of the dimensions of specific components: Tube boxes, shells, and tube sheets. . . . . . IV. Points to Note for U-Conversion and Solid-State Conversion