How to clean the heat exchange tubes in floating-head heat exchangers and fixed-tube-sheet heat exchangers

Affected by traditional thinking patterns, as well as a lack of resources and expertise in cleaning technologies, most enterprises and individuals still rely on traditional \"destructive\" methods such as mechanical cleaning, high-pressure water jetting, and chemical pickling when it comes to dealing with the effects of scaling on heat exchangers and their removal； Moreover, it is a misconception to think that equipment cleaning is only considered when it has a serious impact on production; what’s not realized is that the formation of scale continuously affects a company’s energy consumption and erodes its profits. Moreover, in an attempt merely to reduce cleaning costs, cleaning methods that caused damage and corrosion to the equipment were chosen, resulting in the breakdown of the equipment and a halt in production; this entailed costs hundreds or even thousands of times higher than those of using cleaning agents. For example, a certain cement company uses oxalic acid to clean its heat exchangers, and the cleaning time is limited to no more than 2 hours each time. Due to insufficient cleaning, the frequency of cleaning has increased from once a year to three times a year, resulting in two additional periods of shutdown, which indirectly causes losses for the company. Considering the specific circumstances, if the heat exchange tubes are cleaned, chemical cleaning may cause corrosion and leakage at the welds between the tubes and the tube sheet. I would recommend considering Foshitek eco-friendly cleaning agents. These agents are biological in nature, causing minimal corrosion to metals – the corrosion rate is only **1/5 to 1/10 of that of conventional agents – and they are even harmless to the skin. The cleaning process is very simple: all that’s needed is a circulation pump and a bucket; after adding the appropriate amount of cleaning agent to water, circulation cleaning can be carried out. It’s easy to operate and learn, and its overall cost is much lower than that of outsourcing cleaning services, making it an ideal solution for cleaning. My Haichuan Space has cleaning case studies, which I hope can be helpful to you.

Thank you, I just have questions regarding the cleaning of the heat exchange tubes; it’s not that I need to consider specific cleaning procedures. But you explained it in great detail, and I basically understood it.

Our unit is equipped with a fixed-plate heat exchanger; for the circulating cooling water circuit, a vent valve is installed at the short-circuit point between the water supply valve and the heat exchanger, and backflushing is carried out regularly (which basically does not affect the normal operation of production). Since the quality of the circulating water in my company is rather average, and perhaps to control the costs associated with chemical addition, the company’s production management encourages us to carry out regular flushing. This approach takes into account not only the heat exchange efficiency of the heat exchangers but also simplifies the process of regularly replacing the water in the circulating water system.

This post was last edited by lancelot9 on 2010-6-15 at 14:51. What does \"regular backwashing\" mean? Is it flushing with high-pressure water? What is the specific function of a vent valve?

The second floor is used for advertising, I guess. In fact, the principle of cleaning is the same everywhere; our factory uses steam cleaning, that is, cleaning with pressurized steam.

For example, scale or other types of dirt – can pressurized steam clean them away?

This post was last edited by klxnhis on 2010-6-15 at 16:32. Reply 7# lancelot9: It works for most devices. For devices used to handle acidic solutions, they can be washed with a weakly alkaline solution, but they still need to be rinsed thoroughly with water. For devices used in strong alkaline environments, they must be rinsed extensively with water. The cleaned equipment is purged with steam or nitrogen. Of course, what I’m talking about are the methods that have been used all along; there may be new techniques and approaches now, but we come into contact with them very rarely. You can use this as a reference; the actual implementation will depend on the specific circumstances. There is a type of tubular flushing drill suitable for removing hard deposits inside pipes; fine quartz sand can also be mixed into the water stream to enhance its scouring power.

Thank you, these are enough. During the design of the heat exchanger this time, after the defense, the teacher suddenly asked, how should the heat exchanger you designed be cleaned? I was stunned at that moment. Sigh, although the defense is over, I still want to understand it. Thank you for clarifying that for me.