Industry Guest Lecture On Heat Transfer

Some Industrial Applications
Teo Chee Seng

17 Feb 2015
Types of Heat Exchangers

Typical Applications in Oil refinery
Cryogenic applications in LNG industry
Design
Operations
Vendors
Practical aspects
HXs can be broadly divided by the following

applications
Heat exchange eg. Cold crude oil versus hot column
residue
Boilers eg. Steam reboilers, distillation column
reboilers
Cooler eg. Water coolers, air fin coolers
Chillers eg. Chilled water coolers
Cryogenic eg. Propane refrigeration coolers, air
separation HXs
Shell and Tube (S&T) HXs are the majority

Water coolers trim coolers or rundown
coolers
Air cooled HXs distillation column
condensers
Steam heaters reboilers or preheater
Hot oil heaters closed loop process heating
Heat transfer through S&T HXs

Design of heat exchange network is optimised
by matching temperature level considering
o application of pinch technology in design
o spiral heat inserts; special baffles
Efficiency of network has an impact on unit

throughput and fuel consumption
o application of online chemical cleaning
o optimization of cleaning schedule
Plate exchangers in LNG plants, air separation

units
Spool wound heat exchangers in LNG liquefaction
plants
Printed circuit exchangers in offshore platforms
Propane kettles characterized by narrow
temperature approaches
In LNG terminals, LNG is vaporised into natural
gas using vaporisers (ORVs or SCVs)
ORV Open Rack Vaporisers
SCV Submerged Combustion Vaporisers
Typical LNG Receiving Terminal Flow Scheme
Flare /
Vent
Second
Metering
Station etc.
BOG
Compressor
Recondenser
LNG Tanks
Vaporiser
s
LNG Carrier
In-tank
Pumps
HP
Pumps
Utilities
Metering
Station
BTU adjustment /
odorisation
ORV conceptional flow
10
Open Rack Vaporizer
12
13
Banks of Air Cooled Heat Exchangers are

used as condensers in baseload LNG
liquefaction plants
http://www.geaheatexchangers.com/products/finnedtube-heat-exchangers/air-fin-coolers-foroil-and-gas/
Aluminium HX for enhanced

heat transfer
Very specialised equipment
for Air/NG liquefaction
Service fouling / corrosive?

Temperature difference / approach
Allowable/available pressure drop
O&M philosophy
Applicable codes and regulations
CAPEX / OPEX
Note the
lower
OHTC for
gas-gas
HX
Fixed
Tubesheet
(TEMA type
BEM)
Cheap and easy

construction
Tubes fixed on
both ends; tube
external not
accessible for
cleaning
U tube (TEMA
type BEU)
Good for large

differential Ts
Limited internal
tube cleaning
Floating Head (TEMA

type BES)
Allow access to shell &

tube external for
cleaning
Good for large dTs
Expensive
Kettle Reboiler
Meant for vaporising

medium either heating
eg. Distillation column
bottom reboilers or
chilling like propane
refrigerant
Vapour space allows
liquid and gas
separation
A) PCHE
B) Plate Fin type
Often applied for narrow
temperature differences
and clean services like air,
N2, natural gas etc
Typical task for process engineer is to monitor the

effectiveness of heat exchange network
WHY?
How to monitor?
Decide when to clean and what to clean!
Lower efficiency means increased firing in furnaces leading to

more burning more fuel and higher costs
Efficiency reduces with time due to fouling
Trending the overall heat transfer coefficient of individual HXs or

groups of HXs
There is no OHTC meter! OHTC has to be back calculated based
on temperatures and flowrates
An alternative is to monitor the fouling factors essentially the
same principle as OHTC
normalisation to the right flowrates and temperature is
important as differernt flowrates and temperature can have
significant effect on OHTC calculations
Key process parameters to monitor are

o Furnace Inlet Temperature
o Individual exchanger heat transfer coefficient
trends
o Individual exchanger delta P
Pix showing tube internal cleaning of the tube bundle
For water coolers and air coolers, there are often

no flowmeters and temperature meters on the
air/water side
Monitoring is often by setting a baseline eg
after a maintenance shutdown when equipment
is clean
Troubleshooting is often via hand held meters
like an IR meter to gauge the temperature of the
process / portable ultrasonic flowmeters for
water flow measurement
Comparison against design values often give
good clues to current performance process
models on rating mode is very useful
S&T HXs equipment are no longer considered

specialized equipment and there are many
vendors in the world
Brazed aluminum plate exchangers are more
specials Chart industries/Linde are two of
the leading vendors
Printed circuit HX is a special small form
factor compact HX offered by Heatric
SWHE specialised HX offered by APCI/Linde
for cryogenic applications
Heat exchangers are crucial pieces of equipment

in maintaining unit throughput and optimizing
fuel efficiency
O&M know how and considerations like space
requirements, cleaning schedule, valving
arrangements, flushing, fouling etc need to be
considered in the initial design
Relevant experience is important in choice of HX
to be applied
Trend is towards more online cleaning, nonintrusive monitoring and process monitoring via
simulation
Movie on heat exchanger incident at the

Tesoro refinery
https://www.htri.net/
http://www.tema.org/
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Some Industrial Applications

Teo Chee Seng

Types of Heat Exchangers

HXs can be broadly divided by the following

Shell and Tube (S&T) HXs are the majority

Heat transfer through S&T HXs

Efficiency of network has an impact on unit

Plate exchangers in LNG plants, air separation

Typical LNG Receiving Terminal Flow Scheme

ORV conceptional flow

Open Rack Vaporizer

Banks of Air Cooled Heat Exchangers are

Aluminium HX for enhanced

Service fouling / corrosive?

Cheap and easy

Good for large

Floating Head (TEMA

Allow access to shell &

Meant for vaporising

Typical task for process engineer is to monitor the

Decide when to clean and what to clean!

Lower efficiency means increased firing in furnaces leading to

Trending the overall heat transfer coefficient of individual HXs or

Key process parameters to monitor are

For water coolers and air coolers, there are often

S&T HXs equipment are no longer considered

Heat exchangers are crucial pieces of equipment

Movie on heat exchanger incident at the

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