Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchangers Optimization According to Design and Cost Parameters

Authors: Tahsin ENGİN, Kemal Ersin GÜNGÖR

Abstract: The most economical design of heat exchangers, depends upon an optimum balance between the heat transfer area and the energy consumption arising because from the pressure loss of streams on both sides of the exchanger. Heat exchanger optimization is, therefore, a complex and iterative engineering problem due to too many parameters affecting the design. Such an optimization process is basically based on the determination of the optimum pressure losses. In this study, optimum design of the heat exchangers commonly used in industry is investigated. The optimization method being used, consists of the minimization of the total cost function including heat exchanger capital and energy consumption costs of the system. This study does not cover heat exchanger types such as condenser and evaporator, in which streams undergo phase changes along the process. Nevertheless, the use of this method is highly practical for all of the heat exchanger types in which the heat transfer takes place from liquid to liquid, from liquid to gas and from gas to gas. In this paper, the fundamentals of the method are given first, then, the application to the Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchangers is introduced. But being able to size a heat exchanger, optimally, by using this method depends on determining, objectively, the cost functions which are being taken as basis. Hence, the reliability of this method, on the cost basis, is restricted by the consistency of expressions of the real cost values in the cost functions of the heat exchanger and those of the flow machines.

Keywords: Heat Exchanger, Optimization, Heat Exchanger Design, Heat Exchanger Cost