Juice Heaters

Because high pressure steam is very valuable, exhaust steam is often used for
juice heating or, if possible, preferably bled vapour from the evaporators. It is thus
necessary to have a heat exchanger between vapour and juice; this is provided by the
juice heaters.
The juice heater (below) consists of an assembly of tubes; the juice circulates
through the tubes, and the vapour outside them. Suitable headers force the juice to pass a
certain number of times from bottom to top and from top to bottom of the heater by
restricting the juice each time to a few of the tubes.

Energy juice heater

The input energy to system = energy from steam entry and juice inlet:
Juice inlet, En : Qn . Cn . Tni.
Steam entry, Eu : LHVu .Qu.
The output energy from system = energy from juice outlet:
 En : Qn . Cn . Tno.
The accumulate energy from system:
dTno
Est : mn . Cn . .
dt
Where
• LHVu : heat latent steam entry (Cal/kg)
• Cn : capacity specific of heat from juice inlet (Cal/kg°C)
• Tni : Temperature juice inlet (°C)
• Tno : Temperature juice outlet (°C)
• Qn : flow of juice (kg/s)
• mn : mass flow rate (kg)

Vertical Juice Heater (Cail)

The basic calculation of the juice heater is to calculate the amount of heat transferred
using the overall heat transfer co-efficient (OHTC), the log mean temperature difference
(LMTD) and the heating surface area.

Q = h· A· ΔTlog
where

• Q= heat transfered [kW]

• h= OHTC [kW/m2K]
• A= heat transfer area [m2]
• ΔTlog= LMTD

1 BTU/ft2/°F/h = 5.678 W/m2K

The log mean temperature diffrence is calculated according to the following

formula

The temperature diffrences,

ΔT1 and ΔT2 are most easily defined by example.
In the diagram below ΔT1 = 120°C - 30°C and ΔT2 = 120°C - 100°C

steam

juice

The amount of heat transferred is calculated by

Q = m· (h - h )
1 0

where

• Q= heat transfered [kW]

• m= mass flow rate [kg/s]
• h1= enthalpy of exiting juice [kJ/kg]
• h0= enthalpy of entering juice [kJ/kg]

It is important to keep the juice velocity in the tubes in the range 1.5 m/s to 2 m/s;
if the juice velocity is too low the OHTC is low and the heater is prone to scaling
of the tubes, if the juice velocity in the tubes is too high there will be a high
pressure drop across the heater resulting in a higher pumping load on the juice
pumps.