The heat exchanger is too small
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The heat exchanger in our unit is half the size of those in other units; the design institute explained at the time that this was just how that heat exchanger was designed to be. Now, bypass lines must be installed for the oil in both stages of this heat exchanger.
As long as the heat exchange requirements of the heat exchanger are met, that’s sufficient. The size of the heat exchanger is determined by its heat exchange area; making it larger than necessary is simply a waste!
Reply to 3# penryn: I’m not aware of the specific details of your manufacturing process. Is it because the volume of material to be processed is too large, resulting in insufficient heat exchange efficiency by the heat exchangers, which is why an additional pipeline is needed? If that’s the case, then it’s necessary to choose heat exchangers with a larger heat exchange surface area.
How small is it? Is it a regular heat exchanger or an efficient one?
What is the heat exchange efficiency? Soda heat exchange?
:) You’ve specified a too small value; do you mean the pressure drop is too high? As you said, there are secondary lines on both sides, and the heat exchanger seems to be quite large. If the pressure drop of the heat exchanger is not high, and the process requirements can still be met after activating the bypass line, then, my friend, you’ve won – you’ve obtained an efficient heat exchanger. :)
In my opinion, in a situation like yours, it’s likely that the heat exchange efficiency of your current heat exchanger has decreased, or that an increase in production capacity has resulted in a heat exchange efficiency that is not sufficient for the production requirements. As a result, without replacing the device, it’s necessary to increase the flow rate of the hot fluid in order to achieve the desired heat exchange effect. However, this leads to a significant waste of heat fluid, thereby increasing costs. I recommend that you replace the heat exchanger with one that has a larger heat exchange area, or one with higher heat exchange efficiency (while keeping the same space requirement for the device)