Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Vol. 38, Nos.

3–4, 2002

COILED TUBULAR HEAT EXCHANGERS

O. K. Krasnikova, T. S. Mishchenko, UDC 621.565.93:621.59

L. R. Komarova, O. M. Popov,
and V. N. Udut

The design of coiled tubular heat exchangers developed at NPO Geliimash for cryogenic plants have subsequently
found application in heat and power generation and in the chemical, coal, gas, oil, and other industries.
The TE design used most widely is one intended for cryogenic helium plants (CHPs), which produce temperatures
at the 4.5 K level. The main characteristics of the CHP and the very possibility of attaining such low temperatures depend on
how fully the heat exchangers satisfy the requirements placed on them.
Cryogenic helium plants require compact devices with a high efficiency (0.98–0.985), i.e., ensure that the heat
exchangers operate with small temperature differences between the forward and return helium flows. The allowable pressure
losses in the forward helium flow and especially in the return flow are also small, less than tenths and hundredths of the atmo-
spheric pressure. The heat exchangers should be easy to manufacture, reliable, and inexpensive.
All of these requirements are satisfied fairly completely by coiled heat exchangers made of wire-finned tubes with
a statistically uniform spacing. Their high efficiency is ensured by a uniform distribution of the return flow in the space
between the tubes and the uniform temperature field in the cross section of the equipment, as well as the low longitudinal
thermal conductivity of the design.
The heat-exchange surface has been made very compact by using small-diameter tubes and small channels between
the tubes. The heat exchanger is highly reliable because it has no brazed or welded joints in the coil and the thermal stresses
are compensated by the tube ends being freely placed between the coil and the tube plates.
The technological simplicity and low cost of the coiled heat exchanger because the tubes and the wire need no addi-
tional treatment and the wire does not have to be brazed to the tube. Brazed or welded tube joints are located in the tube
plates, which are in a uniform temperature field.
The operation of putting fins on the tubes and coiling the tubes on a cylindrical core and subsequent layers can be
mechanized.
The tube diameter is 0.3–12 mm; the material is copper, nickel, aluminum, or steel. The diameter of the copper wire
is 0.15–2 mm.
The high efficiency, which ensures fairly complete recuperation of the cold (heat), the small amount of welded and
brazed joints, the low metal consumption, and the low energy consumption make this design quite ecologically clean.
At present all CHPs as well as all low- and medium-capacity air separation plants (ASPs) manufactured in Russia
and the Commonwealth of Independent States are fitted with such heat exchangers. The Wurzen company (Germany) has
bought the license for this heat exchanger design and equipment for manufacturing it.
The helium liquefier for Tokamak-7, the world’s first fusion reactor with superconducting magnets, is also equipped
with such heat exchangers.
This heat exchanger design is used in the Raduga hydrogen microsystem for cooling IR receivers to 13.6 K on space
rockets. Those heat exchangers have a supercompact surface, formed or nickel tubes 0.55 mm in diameter and finned with a
copper wire 0.15–0.33 mm in diameter. The compact heat-exchange surface is 15000 m2/m3.

Open Joint-Stock Company NPO Geliimash. Translated from Khimicheskoe i Neftegazovoe Mashinostroenie, No. 3,
pp. 32–33, March, 2002.

0009-2355/02/0304-0159$27.00 ©2002 Plenum Publishing Corporation 159

 Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Fig. 1. Coiled heat exchanger of the cryogenic helium plant KGU-250/4,5.

Fig. 2. Heat exchanger made of tubes with wire spiral finning.

Coiled heat exchangers made of wire-finned tubes are used in turboexpander units for water cooling of the oil. They
are 1/4 to 1/5 the size of straight-tube devices and are lighter. This is accomplished by increasing the heat transfer coefficient
from the oil by decreasing the thickness of the thermally low-conducting
oil layer that moves in the space between tubes in the device in channels of small equivalent diameter.
Water/oil heat exchangers with a heat load of 3 to 200 kW are manufactured. The 200 kW water/oil heat exchanger
has a diameter of 360 mm, length 1000 mm, and weight 160 kg.
Large series of heat exchangers made of tube with wire finning are used in air conditioners in passenger railway
coaches and also to heat fuel oil poured from tank cars.
A wire-finned heat exchanger design with simple spacers between the layers of rubes is used in condenser-evapora-
tors of low- and medium-capacity ASPs.
Figure 1 shows the heat exchanger of the KGU-250/4,5 plant during manufacture. The tube diameter is 4 × 0.4 mm
and the wire diameter is 0.8 mm. The tubes and the wire are made of copper. The diameter of the coil is 350 mm, the length
is 500 mm, and the weight is 90 kg.
Another type of heat exchanger has been developed for an ASP that generates a temperature of 1.8 K. The main fea-
ture of the operation of the heat exchanger of such an ASP is that it has low allowable pressure losses in the rarefied return
flow line (30–40 mm water) with a large temperature drop (∆t ≈ 300 K). Under the given conditions the return flow of heli-
um is laminar. The possibilities of intensifying the heat exchange are limited with laminar flow and the unfavorable physical
conditions of the heat exchange are compensated for by expanding the heat-exchange surface area.
Those conditions are best met by a coiled heat exchanger made of tubes finned with a spiral of wire with a finning
coefficient of 13–15. Such tubes, wound in several layers on a cylindrical core, form a structure with a developed heat
exchange surface, a clear opening for the return flow of helium, and hence a low resistance to the motion of the return flow
of helium.
Heat exchangers made of tubes with spiral finning have been furnished for a 1.8 K cryogenic helium plant that works
as part of the superconducting linear accelerator in the DESY laboratory (Hamburg, Germany).
Heat exchangers made of tubes with wire spiral finning (Fig. 2) have found application in nitrogen gasifiers for coal
mines. They make up atmospheric evaporators of liquid nitrogen (Fig. 3) and with forced convection for underground
fire-fighting systems. The freezing process on such tubes has the following feature. A layer of hoar frost grows primarily on
the outside surface of the spiral, leaving the space inside the spiral practically free. That ensures a long period of evaporator
operation without any significant increase in under-recuperation.
A fire-fighting system with such an evaporator has been made at the Ekaterinburg Works and tested in the Tset-
nral’naya mine of PO Prokop’evskugol’. During the testing, the system handled a fire due to spontaneous combustion of coal
in two days (usually such a fire is put out in 8–10 days).

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 Fig. 3 Fig. 4

Fig. 3. Element of an atmospheric gasifier.

Fig. 4. Smooth-tube heat exchanger with checkerboard arrangement of tubes.

A heat exchanger that functions at high temperatures and pressures has been developed for heat and power genera-
tion and the gas industry. It is a smooth-tube heat exchanger with a checkerboard arrangement of tubes. That structure is
obtained by using custom-profiled spacers to ensure a complete and uniform flow around the tubes, thus increasing the heat
exchange rate and giving high values of the thermal efficiency.
Gas-turbine units used for booster compression of natural gas on main pipelines have been furnished with such heat
exchangers which are also used as a heat-recovery boiler in mini heat and power plants. Most heat and power plants, in par-
ticular the TÉTs-21 (Moscow), such heat exchangers heat natural gas before it is fed into the turboexpander unit.
Figure 4 shows a smooth-tube heat exchanger with checkerboard arrangement of tubes for the NK-38ST gas turbine
engine, designed by OAO Samarskii Nauchno-Tekhnicheskii Kompleks im. N. D. Kuznetsova (Open Joint-Stock Company
N. D. Kuznetsov Scientific and Technical Complex, Samara). The tube diameter is 6 × 1 mm and the material is corrosion-
resistant steel.
In conclusion, we must point out that the results of computational-theoretical and experimental investigations by
workers of NPO Gellimash [1–6] are used in developing the heat exchanger designs.

REFERENCES

1. Yu. B. Svetlov, V. Ya. Krasnosel’skii, and E. M. Sarmatova. “Designing a multichannel heat exchanger with uneven
distribution of flows,” Khim. Neft. Mashinostr., No. 6, 21 (1987).
2. O. K. Krasnikova, “Stochastic model of calculations for the heat exchanger of a cryogenic unit,” Khim. Neft.
Mashinostr., No. 5, 8 (1988).
3. O. K. Krasnikova, E. V. Onosovskii, S. N. Platonova, et al., “New compact evaporators of cryogenic liquid gasifiers,”
Khim. Neft. Mashinostr., No. 1, 19 (1988).
4. V. A. Martynov, “New efficient heat exchangers made of tubes finned with wire and a spiral,” Khim. Neft. Mashinos-
tr., No. 3, 12 (1989).
5. O. K. Krasnikova, Methods of Intensifying Heat Exchange with Forced Convection in Devices of Cryogenic Systems
[in Russian], TsINTIkhimneftemash, Moscow (1990).
6. O. K. Krasnikova, L. R. Komarova, and T. S. Mishchenko, “Coiled smooth heat exchanger with improved thermal
characteristics,” Khim. Neftgaz. Mashinostr., No. 4, 25 (1997).

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