Abstract
Recent years have witnessed a rapid development in the understanding of heat exchangers design. Those developments have justified the use of a global minimum allowable temperature approach under which the heat transfer area of the heat exchanger is minimized. Values of the allowable pressure drops of streams of exchangers are specified to calculate film heat-transfer coefficients of streams and heat-transfer area. By coupling this with the understanding of what dictates the energy consumption, it is possible to determine the trade-off between the heat exchanger capital cost and energy cost prior to design work. Pressure drop is an important issue in the design of a heat exchanger. Pumps and (or) compressors must be installed to overcome pressure losses when streams flow through heat exchangers. The total cost for a system of pumps and compressors consists of the purchase cost of equipments and the electricity cost to run these equipments. This cost could occupy a significant part of the overall cost for a heat exchanger. Therefore, the pressure drop aspect should be considered together with the costs of heat exchanger area.
This paper demonstrates how pressure drop is considered in the context of a sludge double-pipe heat exchanger design. A relationship between heat transfer coefficient and heat exchanger pressure drop was determined and its capital cost implications were assessed.
