Double Pipe Heat Exchanger Report

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This report presents an analysis of the performance of the double pipe, shell-and-tube, and plate heat exchangers and a comparison of the overall and film heat transfer coefficients for each exchanger. As there are different heat exchangers and flow direction capabilities, it was essential to understand the capabilities and performance differences for each heat exchanger. Each heat exchanger was evaluated by measuring the change in temperatures and flow rates for the hot and cold temperature streams.
A variety of parameters were calculated to analyze the difference of the three heat exchangers’ performance including: heat transfer rate, energy balance, and overall heat transfer coefficient. In addition, the double pipe heat exchanger was operated …show more content…

This was expected because as the cold water flow rate increased, more heat transfer was occurring throughout the heat exchanger between the hot and cold streams. The plate heat exchanger was observed to have much higher overall heat transfer coefficient values than either the shell-and-tube or the double pipe. This was attributed to the plate heat exchanger having larger temperature differences from the increased outlet cold stream and the decreased outlet hot stream compared to the other heat exchangers. Thereby, the overall heat transfer coefficient significantly increased for the plate heat exchanger. The shell-and-tube and the double pipe heat exchangers did not have as large a difference in temperature change, thereby resulting in similar overall heat transfer coefficient values.
The change in the overall heat transfer coefficient for the constant cold stream and changing hot stream flows are shown in Figure 2 below.

As observed in Figure 2, the overall heat transfer coefficient at each changing hot water flow rate again increased for each heat exchanger. The plate heat exchanger was again observed to have much higher overall heat transfer coefficient values than either the shell-and-tube or the double pipe due to the same larger temperature differences. The different flow-patterns for the double pipe heat exchanger were very similar in both …show more content…

However, the film coefficients for the hot water flow rate for the Wilson Plot was about twice that of the Buonopane Correlation. These film coefficient values should be about the same. As the Wilson plot was an extrapolated version of data and not based solely off experimental data like the Buonopane correlation, there may be some discrepancies in the results. However, there is a possibility of some experimental error from temperature values not reaching steady state that then affected the film coefficient

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