CHAPTER

Exchangers
6
6.1 SELECTION
Because of many variables, selecting optimal heat exchangers can be difficult. Hand
calculations can be used, however most times; heat exchangers are selected by the use
of computer programs, either by heat exchanger engineers, or by equipment vendors.
To select an appropriate heat exchanger, the engineer (or equipment vendors)
would firstly consider the design limitations for each heat exchanger type. Though
cost is often the primary criterion, several other selection criteria are important:

• High-/low-pressure limits
• Thermal performance
• Temperature ranges
• Product mix (liquid/liquid, particulates, or high-solids liquid)
• Pressure drops across the exchanger
• Fluid flow capacity
• Clean ability, maintenance, and repair
• Materials required for construction
• Ability and ease of future expansion
• Material selection, such as copper, aluminum, carbon steel, stainless steel, nickel
alloys, ceramic, polymer, and titanium.

Choosing the right heat exchanger requires some knowledge of the different heat
exchanger types, as well as the environment where the unit must operate. Typically,
in the manufacturing industry, several differing types of heat exchangers are used for
just one process or system to derive the final product. For example, a kettle heat
exchanger for preheating, a double pipe heat exchanger for the “carrier” fluid and
a plate and frame heat exchanger for final cooling. With sufficient knowledge of heat
exchanger types and operating requirements, an appropriate selection can be made to
optimize the process.

6.2 CONSTRUCTION
The most common type of heat exchanger is the shell and tube. These exchangers are
constructed from elongated steel cylindrical vessels that contain bundles of parallel
tubes. Liquid passes through the inside of the shell cover over the exterior side of the
The Engineer’s Guide to Plant Layout and Piping Design for the Oil and Gas Industries.
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170 CHAPTER 6 Exchangers

tubes, and with another liquid passing through the interior of the tubes. This causes
the necessary heat exchange between the two liquids. Generally, the heated media
will flow up and the cooler media will flow down.
This is the simple physical behavior of any heated or cooled media. This rule is
important if in the flowing physical media change takes place while passing through
the heat exchanger (evaporation and condensation), where liquid and noncondensing
gases pass through the exchanger this rule becomes a preference.
This is why in most cases water inlet is located on the underside of the exchanger,
and the outlet on the top side. Similarly, steam would enter at the top channel nozzle
and condensate leaving from the bottom outlet.
A condenser vapor inlet would be at the top and the liquid outlet would be at the
bottom. At the start of exchanger design, the exchanger engineer will define:

• Exchanger type
• Construction details
• Nozzle arrangements
• Flow direction

The exchanger engineer usually has no influence over the external piping arrangement,
and conversely the piping engineer and designer usually has no influence over the
design of the heat exchanger, but he can request alternate flow and nozzle arrange-
ments based on a more economical and better engineered piping arrangement.
Shell and tube exchangers—These are the most common types of exchanger.

Tube
outlet
Shell
inlet Floating head
tubesheet
Channel
Tube bundle Floating
head
head
Pass
partition
Baffle
Channel
head
cover Tube Floating
Channel
support head
head
baffle cover
tubesheet
Shell
outlet

Tube
inlet
 6.2 Construction 171

These exchanger heads can be designed to accommodate several passes on the tube
side. Multiple passes on the shell side can be achieved by installing baffles parallel to
the tubes. Baffles may also be installed inside the shell, perpendicular to the tubes to
direct the liquid in the shell against the tubes. Multiple passes are used to increase
fluid velocity or to improve flow path, and this increases heat recovery.
Plate exchangers—These are generally used in low-pressure, low-temperature
applications.

Plate exchangers are made up of end covers that carry bars, inlet, and outlet nozzles,
plates, and gaskets. Exchanger plates have spacing between them for liquid flow.
A gasket set into channels on the end of each plate directs the liquid flow. Ports
for inlet and outlet are stamped into the corners of each plate.
Double pipe exchangers—These are used when one liquid has a greater resistance
to heat flow than another or when the surface area is small.

The addition of fins to the inner pipe evens out the resistance to heat flow of the two
liquids.
Basically, a double pipe exchanger consists of a pipe within a pipe. Both pipes
have a return bend at one end. The inner pipe is fitted with fins. The outer pipe acts as
the shell.
Shell nozzles are mounted vertically from the outer pipe. Tube nozzles are
directly welded to the inner pipe ends.
172 CHAPTER 6 Exchangers

Spiral heat exchangers—These are used generally in chemical plants and are of
circular construction.

Hot fluid in
Cold fluid out

Cold fluid in
Hot fluid out
Spiral heat exchangers consist of an assembly of two long strips of plate wrapped to
form a pair of concentric spiral passages. The alternate edges of the passage are
closed; this enables the liquid to flow through continuous channels. Removable
covers are fitted to each side of the spiral assembly for access to the spiral plate. Inlet
and outlet nozzles are integral to the plate housing and covers.

PHASE-CHANGE HEAT EXCHANGERS

In addition to heating up or cooling down fluids in just a single phase, heat exchangers
can be used either to heat a liquid to evaporate (or boil) it or used as condensers to cool
a vapor and condense it to a liquid. In chemical plants and refineries, reboilers used as
heat-incoming feed for distillation towers are often heat exchangers.
Vapor

Steam
Liquid level

Liquid
feed Condensate

Bottoms
product
Typical kettle reboiler used for industrial distillation towers

Distillation set-ups typically use condensers to condense distillate vapors back

into liquid.
Power plants that use steam-driven turbines commonly use heat exchangers to
boil water into steam. Heat exchangers or similar units for producing steam from
water are often called boilers or steam generators.
 6.2 Construction 173

In the nuclear power plants called pressurized water reactors, special large heat
exchangers pass heat from the primary (reactor plant) system to the secondary (steam
plant) system, producing steam from water in the process. These are called steam
generators. All fossil-fueled and nuclear power plants using steam-driven turbines
have surface condensers to convert the exhaust steam from the turbines into conden-
sate (water) for re-use.
To ejector
Water outlet Steam
vacuum system

Flanges

Hotwell

Flanged Tubesheet Tubesheet

cover
plate
Water inlet Condensate
Typical water-cooled surface condenser

To conserve energy and cooling capacity in chemical and other plants, regenerative
heat exchangers can transfer heat from a stream that must be cooled to another stream
that must be heated, such as distillate cooling and reboiler feed preheating.

HELICAL-COIL HEAT EXCHANGERS

Helical-coil heat exchanger sketch, which consists of a shell, core, and tubes.

Exchanger length

Tube
Shell inlet
inlet
Core

Core

Shell
Tube outlet
outlet

Helical-coil heat exchanger

174 CHAPTER 6 Exchangers

Although double-pipe heat exchangers are the simplest to design, the better choice in
the following cases would be the helical-coil heat exchanger (HCHE).
The main advantage of the HCHE, like that for the SHE, is its highly efficient use of
space, especially when its limited and not enough straight pipes can be laid. Under con-
ditions of low flowrates (or laminar flow), such as the typical shell-and-tube exchangers
that have low heat-transfer coefficients becomes uneconomical when there is low pressure
in one of the fluids, usually from accumulated pressure drops in other process equipment.
When one of the fluids has components in multiple phases (solids, liquids, and
gases), which tends to create mechanical problems during operations, such as plug-
ging of small-diameter tubes. Cleaning of helical coils for these multiple-phase fluids
can prove to be more difficult than its shell-and-tube counterpart; however, the
helical-coil unit would require cleaning less often.
These have been used in the nuclear industry as a method for exchanging heat in a
sodium system for large liquid metal fast breeder reactors since the early 1970s,
Air cooled exchangers—These are different from other exchangers in that the
cooling agent used is air instead of liquid.
Warm air

7 4
3
2
1
5 9

1 Tube bundle 4 Fan 7 Fan ring

2 Header 5 Belt drive 8 Fan bridge
3 Plenum 6 Motor 6 Walkway

An air cooler consists of fin tube bundles, with a header box attached to each end, and
this is supported horizontally by a steel frame or structure.
There are two types of air-cooled exchangers:

• Single pass—These have the inlet nozzles mounted on top of the header box, with
the outlet nozzles at the opposite end mounted on the bottom of the header box.
• Double pass—These have the outlet nozzles located at the same end as the inlet
nozzles, so for additional surface area, more passes can be added, or additional
units can be installed and located side by side.

In an air-cooled exchanger, air circulates by multiblade propeller type fans.

These provide either forced or induced drafts. These fans can be supplied with
either adjustable, speed, or variable pitch blades. The fan blade pitch can be changed
to vary the air flow to compensate for the rise or fall in air temperatures.
 6.2 Construction 175

1
2
9
3

6 4
5

7
Induced 8
draft

6 4

1 5
2 3
9

Forced 7 8
draft

1. Fan 4. Nozzle 7. Drive assembly

2. Fan ring 5. Header 8. Column support
3. Plenum 6. Tube bundle 9. Inlet bell

Piping at Inlet / Outlet Manifold Inlet Outlet manifold and tube ends
176 CHAPTER 6 Exchangers

Photo of air cooler on a pipe rack in a process plant

6.3 LOCATION AND SUPPORT

Exchangers are located within a process unit to satisfy the following conditions:

• Must be close to related equipment

• Should have an economic piping arrangement
• Shall have adequate piping flexibility
• Must provide good operator and maintenance access
• Shall provide a safe egress

The type of exchanger can also influence location:

Air coolers—are usually located above pipe racks, but can also be located at grade
in a small structure (more common in gas plants).
Vertical reboilers—are usually attached to vertical columns (towers).
Shell-and-tube exchangers—most often are located at grade singularly or in
groups, but can also be in a structure.
Spiral exchangers—either located at grade or structure, usually close to
associated equipment due to process considerations.
Plate exchangers—can also be located at grade or in structures.
Stacked exchangers—the maximum elevation for stacked exchangers is 12 ft/
3.6 m. Above this height platforming and structure may be required.
Double pipe—can also be located at grade or in structures.
 6.3 Location and support 177

w
TYP.

7' " .

Maintenance
platform

Additional platform
if ladder run is
longer than
30'–0" (9150)
 178
CHAPTER 6 Exchangers

12'-0"(3600) Maximum
without platform
Concrete piers 3'-0"(900) Minimum Minimum
 6.3 Location and support 179

Horizontal exchangers are supported by saddles attached to concrete piers at grade,

or by saddles sitting on structural support steel in steel structures.
Space is required on spiral exchangers in order to swing the cover plates open.

(TYP.)

(TYP.)

(TYP.)

Space is required at plate exchangers to remove the individual plates.

Spiral and plate exchangers can operate either in series or in parallel. Owing to
the configuration and maintenance requirements the preference is to locate them as
single items.

AIR COOLERS
Design considerations must consider the point of support, such as the supporting col-
umn. Considerations for changes to platforms and pipe support loadings that might
occur late in the project, and must be addressed so as to avoid delays by the changes
to the air cooler arrangement by the vendor.
180 CHAPTER 6 Exchangers

Late changes need to be avoided to avoid redesign to support legs and platforms,
as this will only incur delays and added costs.

Motor

6.4 NOZZLE ORIENTATION

Location and orientation of exchanger nozzles affects the piping configurations of
exchangers. Although the piping engineer does not set the nozzle locations (this
is set by the exchanger engineer), the piping engineer has the ability to suggest alter-
nate nozzle locations in the interests of an improved and more economical piping
arrangement.
Stacked exchangers can be reduced in height by using elbow or gooseneck
nozzles.
Air cooler nozzle locations can affect piping arrangements.
Single pass arrangements can make return piping on an overhead condenser very
long, and might also increase the height of the air cooler.
Double pass arrangements (or reorienting the air cooler) can improve the piping
configuration.
 6.5 Exchanger piping 181

6.5 EXCHANGER PIPING

Piping at exchangers must be arranged in such a manner that it is:

• Economical
• Flexible
• Adequately supported
• Maintainable
• Operable
• Has good access and egress
• Allows for adequate space for removal of channel heads and shell covers.
• Adequate space adjacent to exchanger for location of control stations if required.

Piping connected to channel head nozzles should be furnished with break flanges, to
enable the removal of the channel head.
Piping connected to spiral and plate exchangers must be positioned so as to
allow opening of covers and plate removal.
Piping connected to cover plate nozzles of spiral exchangers must be furnished
with break flanges to allow for plate removal.
Piping connected to air coolers should not be routed over tube banks or fans, and
should also be kept clear of motor maintenance access spaces.
 182
CHAPTER 6 Exchangers
Piping arrangements at exchangers.
 6.5 Exchanger piping 183

Series flow Series flow

Symetrical piping required

for equal distribution
Pull tubes
in systems with low
this direction
pressure drop

Parallel flow

Parallel flow

Shell and tube Double pipe exchanger

AIR COOLER PIPING

Asymmetrical rake
184 CHAPTER 6 Exchangers

6.6 TYPES OF EXCHANGERS

The Tubular Exchanger Manufacturers Association, Inc. (TEMA) is trade associa-
tion of leading manufacturers of shell-and-tube heat exchangers, who have pioneered
the research and development of heat exchangers for over 60 years.
The TEMA standards and software have achieved worldwide acceptance as the
authority on shell-and-tube heat exchanger mechanical design.
TEMA has also developed engineering software that complements the TEMA
standards in the areas of flexible shell elements (expansion joints) analysis, flow-
induced vibration analysis, and fixed tube sheet design and analysis. This state-
of-the-art software features a materials data bank of 38 materials, as well as user-
friendly, interactive input and output screens. The programs handle many complex
calculations, so users can focus on the final results.
The following is a chart of TEMA standard types:

TEMA–type

Front end Rear end head types

Shell types
stationary head types
L
E Fixed tubesheet like
One pass shell “A” stationary head
A
Channel and
removable cover M
F
Fixed tubesheet like
Two pass shell
“B” stationary head
with longitudinal
baffle

B N
Bonnet Fixed tubesheet like
(integral cover)
G “N” stationary head
Split flow

P
Outside packed
C H floating head
Channel integral Double split flow
with tubesheet and
removable cover
(removable tube S
bundle only) Floating head
J with backing device
Divided flow

N T
Channel integral
Pull through
with tubesheet and
floating head
removable cover K
Kettle type
reboiler
U
U-tube bundle
D
Special high
pressure closure X W
Cross flow Externally sealed
floating tubesheet
 6.6 Types of exchangers 185

SHELL-AND-TUBE HEAT EXCHANGER

Tube bundles

U-tube heat exchanger

Shell-side
fluid in Tube sheet Outlet
Baffle Shell plenum

Out

In
Tube-side
fluid
Shell side Baffle
Tube bundle Inlet
with U-tubes Shell-side plenum
fluid out

Tube bundles
186 CHAPTER 6 Exchangers

Tube-side
Straight-tube heat exchanger Shell-side fluid in
(two pass tube-side) fluid in

Tube sheet Tube bundle with

straight tubes

plenum plenum
Inlet Outlet
Shell Tube sheet
Baffles
Shell-side
fluid out Tube-side
fluid out

Tube bundles

MAINTENANCE
Shell-and-tube exchangers—internal shell and tubes can be cleaned in place with
high-pressure steam or water, and by “rodding”. If the exchanger is designed for tube
removal, then the tubes can be removed for repair or cleaning. Tube bundles and both
the head-and-shell covers can be removed by the use of fixed handling devices such
as davits, hitch points, and pulling posts. Fixed structures with trolley beams, trav-
eling Gantry cranes, and cranes with hydraulic bundle extractors can also be used.
Plate and frame heat exchangers can be disassembled and cleaned periodically.
Tubular heat exchangers can be cleaned by such methods as acid cleaning, sandblast-
ing, high-pressure water jet, bullet cleaning, or drill rods.
 6.6 Types of exchangers 187

In large-scale cooling water systems for heat exchangers, water treatment such as
purification, addition of chemicals, and testing is used to minimize fouling of the heat
exchange equipment. Other water treatment is also used in steam systems for power
plants, etc. to minimize fouling and corrosion of the heat exchange and other equipment.
A variety of companies has started using water-borne oscillations technology to
prevent biofouling. Without the use of chemicals, this type of technology has helped
in providing a low-pressure drop in heat exchangers.
By periodically calculating the overall heat transfer coefficient from exchanger
flow rates and temperatures, the owner of the heat exchanger can estimate when
cleaning the heat exchanger is economically attractive.
Integrity inspection of plate and tubular heat exchanger can be tested in situ by the
conductivity or helium gas methods. These methods confirm the integrity of the
plates or tubes to prevent any cross contamination and the condition of the gaskets.
Mechanical integrity monitoring of heat exchanger tubes may be conducted
through nondestructive methods such as eddy current testing.

(A)

Sectional views through Process Plant Structures and Piperack

(B) showing exchanger Bundle removal