Using PC Software to Predict Heat Exchanger Performance
Will your heat exchanger do the job if the cooling-tower temperature drops or increases? What happens to the exchanger’s performance when excessive fouling occurs? Engineers often must answer such questions as these to determine the performance of their heat exchangers at other-than-design conditions.
Heat exchanger designers establish operational constraints when they develop a system. In practice, these constraints are conservatively stated, although rarely experienced, during the useful lifetime of a system. Usually, a designer assumes worst-case conditions with respect to the inlet cooling-water temperature and fouling. However, when operational variables change, such as thermal load and cooling-tower temperature, it is necessary to predict exchanger performance under the new conditions so that the impact on all variables in the process loop can be determined.
Heat exchanger variables used in predicting exchanger performance are: