HEAT TRANSFER UNIT OPERATIONS

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INTRODUCTION
Heat transfer is one of the most important industrial processes. Throughout any
industrial process, heat must be added, removed, or moved from one process
stream to another.
There are three basic types of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation.
The two most common forms encountered in the chemical processing industry are
Conduction and convection.

A Heat Exchanger is a device built for efficient heat transfer from one fluid to
another, whether the fluids are separated by a solid wall so that they never mix, or the
fluids are directly contacted. They are widely used in petroleum refineries,
chemical plants, petrochemical plants, natural gas processing, refrigeration, power
plants, air conditioning and heating of buildings (à radiator).

Heat exchangers may be classified according to their flow arrangement. In parallel-

flow heat exchangers, the two fluids enter the exchanger at the same end, and
travel in parallel to one another to the other side. In counter-flow heat exchangers the
fluids enter the exchanger from opposite ends, resulting in more efficient heat
transfer. See countercurrent exchange. In a cross-flow heat exchanger, the fluids travel
roughly perpendicular to one another through the exchanger.

Countercurrent (A) and parallel (B) flows.

The driving force for heat transfer is the difference in temperature levels between
the hot and cold fluids, the greater the difference the higher the rate at which the heat
will flow between them. For complex processing sequences process engineers intent
to optimise the temperature levels at each stage to maximise the total rate of heat
flow.

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For efficiency, heat exchangers are designed to maximize the surface area of the wall
between the two fluids, while minimizing resistance to fluid flow through the
exchanger. The exchanger's performance can also be affected by the addition of fins
or corrugations in one or both directions, which increase surface area and may
channel fluid flow or induce turbulence.

The driving temperature across the heat transfer surface varies with position, but an
appropriate mean temperature can be defined. In most simple systems this is the log
mean temperature difference (LMTD). Sometimes the LMTD is not available and
the NTU method is used.

The mathematical equations which describe the process of heat transfer are fairly
simple:

Q =U × A×DT

where:

Q: Amount of heat transferred.

A: Area for heat transfer.

DT: Effective temperature difference.

U: A factor which describes the rate of heat transfer.

The value of U is most often not readily available, being function of the partial heat
transfer coefficients, the thermal conductivity of the metal, the thickness of the
metal and the degree of degradation (fouling factor for each fluid).

While the values for the fouling factors are usually specified by the process engineer,
the values for the metal contributions can be influenced directly by the HX

design engineer by the choice of tube size and thickness and the materials of
construction. The values for the partial heat transfer coefficients depend greatly on
the nature of the fluids but also, crucially, on the geometry of the heat transfer
surfaces they are in contact with. Importantly the final values are heavily influenced
by what happens at the level of the boundary layers, the fluid actually in contact
with the heat transfer surface.

Simulation of Heat Transfer devices

There are several unit operations in the simulator whose objective is the transfer of
heat. If you call the Operations Navigator (F12) and filter by Heat Transfer

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Equipment, you get a full list:

· Heater and Cooler: One-sided heat exchanger.

· Air Cooler: Cross Flow heat exchanger.

· Heat Exchanger: Shell & Tube heat exchanger.

· Fired Heater: Fired heat exchangers.

· LNG: Plate-Fin heat exchangers.

Some details about the heat exchangers that will be used in this module follow below:

ONE-SIDED HEAT EXCHANGERS (HEATER AND COOLERS)

The Heater and Cooler unit operations are one-sided heat exchangers. The inlet stream
is heated/cooled to the required outlet conditions, and the energy stream absorbs the
enthalpy difference between the two streams. This operation is useful when you are
interested only in how much energy is required to heat/cool a process stream with a
utility, but you are not interested in the conditions of the utility itself.

AIR COOLERS (CROSS-FLOW HEAT EXCHANGERS)

The air cooler unit operation uses an ideal air mixture as a heat transfer medium to
cool (or heat) an inlet process stream to a required exit stream condition. One or more
fans circulate the air through bundles of tubes to cool process fluids. The air flow can
be specified or calculated from the fan rating information. The air cooler can solve for
many different sets of specifications including:
· The overall heat transfer coefficient, UA.

· The total air flow.

· The exit stream temperature.

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SHELL & TUBE HEAT EXCHANGERS (HEAT EXCHANGERS)

The heat exchanger performs two-sided energy and material balance calculations.
The heat exchanger is a very flexible unit operation and can solve for temperatures,
pressures, heat flows (including heat loss and heat leak), material stream flows, or
UA.

The Heat Exchanger Model offers different methods to solve your simulation
problem. Your choices include:
· an End Point analysis design model,
· an ideal (Ft=1) counter-current Weighted design model,

· a Steady State Rating method, and

· a Dynamic Rating method.

The Dynamic Rating method is available as either a Basic or Detailed model and can
also be used in steady state mode for heat exchanger rating.

The unit operation also allows the use of third party heat exchanger design methods
via OLE Extensibility.

Exchanger Design (End Point)

This model is based on the standard heat exchanger duty equation defined in terms
of overall heat transfer coefficient, area available for heat exchange and the
logarithmic mean temperature difference. The main assumptions of the model are
that the overall heat transfer coefficient U is constant and that the specific heat (Cp)
of both shell and tube side streams are constant.
End Point Design:
appropriate when there This model treats the heat curves for both heat exchanger sides as linear. For simple
is no phase change, and problems where there is no phase change and Cp is relatively constant, this option
Cp is relatively may be sufficient to model your heat exchanger. For non-linear heat flow problems,
constant. the Weighted model should be used instead.

Exchanger Design (Weighted Model)

This model is an excellent approach to deal with non-linear heat curve problems such
as the phase change of pure components in one or both heat exchanger sides. The
heating curves are broken into intervals and an energy balance is performed along
each interval. A LMTD and UA are calculated for each interval in the heat curve and
summed to calculate the overall exchanger UA.
Weighted Model:
The Weighted model is available only for counter-current exchangers and is
appropriate when there
is phase change of pure essentially an energy and material balance model. The geometry configurations that
components in the heat affect the Ft correction factor are not taken into consideration in this model.
exchanger.

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Steady State Rating

The Steady State Rating model is an extension of the End Point model, incorporating
a rating calculation and using the same assumptions as the End Point model. If you
provide detailed geometry information, you can rate the exchanger using this model.
As the name suggests, this model is only available for steady state rating.

Dynamic Rating

Two models are available for Dynamic Rating: Basic and Detailed. If you specify three
temperatures or two temperatures and a UA, you can rate the exchanger with the
Basic model. If you provide detailed geometry information, you can rate the
exchanger using the Detailed model.

The Basic model is based on the same assumptions as the End Point design model
which uses the standard heat exchanger duty equation defined in terms of overall
heat transfer coefficient, area available for heat exchange, and the log mean
temperature difference. The Basic model is actually the counterpart of the End Point
design model for Dynamics and dynamic rating but can also be used for steady state
heat exchanger rating.

The Detailed model is based on the same assumptions as the Weighted design model
and divides the heat exchanger into a number of heat zones, performing an energy
balance along each interval. This model requires detailed geometry information
about your heat exchanger. The Detailed model is actually the counterpart of the
Weighted design model for Dynamics and dynamic rating but can also be used for
steady state heat exchanger rating.

Once Dynamic Rating is selected, no further information is required from the

Parameters page of the Design tab. Choice of Basic or Detailed model is made on the
Parameters page of the Rating tab or the Model Page of the Dynamics tab.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
During this module, you will learn rigorous ways of representing the heat transfer unit operations in a
process model. After the completion of this module the user should have to be able
to:
· Use Heaters and Coolers to investigate the duty needs for heating or
cooling process streams.
· Install and converge Shell & Tube Heat Exchangers in Design mode and
understand the differences between End Point and Weighted Design
Methods.
· Use the Rating capabilities of the shell & tubes heat exchangers to
simulate existing units.
· Install and converge Air coolers

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WORKSHOP
We will investigate different alternatives to warm up a process stream that needs a certain temperature.
We will first compute the duty needs using a simple heater and then we will see how
much steam is needed to provide such duty. The availability of a hotter process
stream will allow us to explore as well such alternative.

The use of a shell & tubes heat exchanger in design mode will allow the calculation of
the necessary UA for that heat transfer. Then, an existing heat exchanger will be
validated for that purpose.

Finally, an air cooler will be installed for the final cooling of the second process
stream.

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EXERCISE 1. HEATERS AND COOLERS

A process stream (the organic liquids from a 3-phase separation) needs to be heated
up before entering a distillation column in order to reach a certain degree of
vaporization. There are different alternatives to accomplish so and it is required to
evaluate them.

1.1 Create a New Case.

1.2 Instead of creating the Fluid Package from scratch, import the Lean
Gas.fpk.

1.3 Move to the Simulation Environment and create a new stream called NGL
Feed. Define it according to the composition and conditions in the below
table:
Stream Name NGL Feed
Temperature 66,0 C
Pressure 5515,0 kPa
Molar Flow 455,0 kgmol/h
Component Mole Fractions
Nitrogen 0,0000
CO2 0,0000
Methane 0,0970
Ethane 0,1100
Propane 0,1500
i-Butane 0,0900
n-Butane 0,0850
i-Pentane 0,0500
n-Pentane 0,0450
n-Hexane 0,0480
H2O 0,0440
NBP_93 0,0600
NBP_139 0,0650
NBP_219 0,0610
NBP_331 0,0560
NBP_494 0,0390

1.4 Install a valve to reduce the pressure to 2070 kPa and a 3-phase separator
afterwards, like the figure below is showing:

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We need to warm up the stream Liquid to 125 oC and it is necessary to understand

how much duty this will suppose. The ideal tool to perform such a calculation is the
Heater unit operation.

1.5 Install a Heater downstream of stream Liquid, assume 10 kPa of pressure

drop, and fix a heater outlet temperature of 125 oC.

Q1: What duty has been calculated?

Assuming that saturated mid pressure steam (MP steam) at 175 C is available, how
much of it is necessary to accomplish the heating of the Liquid stream?

We can use the simulator to try to quickly answer the above question:

1.6 Create a pure water stream (Steam In). Define it as saturated (Vap Frac. =
1.00) and at 175 C.

1.7 Install a Cooler and connect Steam In as feed and a new stream Steam Out as
product. Consider that the steam condenses completely to its bubble
point (Vap Frac = 0.00).

1.8 Fix a pressure drop of 40 kPa in the Cooler.

1.9 Use the same energy stream of the Heater in point 1.5 as energy stream
for the Cooler.

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Q2: What mass flow of MP steam is necessary?

SAVE YOUR CASE AS: HEAT TRANSFER_EXERCISE 1

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EXERCISE 2. USING A PROCESS STREAM

Instead of using steam, there is the possibility to use 240 kgmol/h of another
process stream in the plant (Bottoms) that is available at 185 C and 20 bar.

2.1 Create a new steam with the information in table below:

Stream Name Bottoms
Temperature 185 C
Pressure 2000 kPa
Molar Flow 240 kgmol/h
Component Mole Fractions
Nitrogen 0,00000
CO2 0,00000
Methane 0.00004
Ethane 0.00180
Propane 0.05280
i-Butane 0,07900
n-Butane 0,09030
i-Pentane 0,07610
n-Pentane 0,07280
n-Hexane 0,08920
H2O 0,00006
NBP_93 0,11430
NBP_139 0,12450
NBP_219 0,11690
NBP_331 0,10740
NBP_494 0,07480

2.2 Repeat points 1.6 to 1.9 but using the just created process stream Bottoms
instead of the MP steam one.

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Q3: How much is Bottoms stream temperature decreased?

SAVE YOUR CASE AS: HEAT TRANSFER_EXERCISE 2

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EXERCISE 3. SHELL AND TUBES HEAT EXCHANGERS (DESIGN MODE)

In order to benefit from the Bottoms stream, a shell and tube heat exchanger will be necessary to be
capable to transfer heat from one stream to the other. We will use the simulator to
calculate what UA should have to have that heat exchanger.

3.1 From the Object Palette, install a Shell & Tube heat exchanger just below the
previous cooler.

3.2 Use the Liquid stream as Tube Side Inlet. Create a new stream for the Tube
Side Outlet.

3.3 Use the Bottoms stream as Shell Side Inlet. Create a new stream for the
Shell Side Outlet.

3.4 Fix the tubes outlet temperature to be the desired 125 C.

3.5 Keep using the same 10 kPa (cold side) and 40 kPa (hot side) as pressure
drops in the heat exchanger sides.

Q4: Does the heat exchanger have enough information to close its degrees of
freedom and solve?

Q5: Does the exchanger calculation experience any problem? Does it however
calculate a UA? Which one?

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3.6 Move to the Performance tab and check the value of the Ft
Correction Factor as well as of the other results.

The simplification to assume that the solution of the differential equation in the
energy balance can be simplified by an LMTD and a Ft Correction Factor is not valid if
this value needs to be below 0.8. In such cases, it is recommended to divide the heat
flow interval and solve the energy balance by weighting the different steps of equal
enthalpy or equal temperature.

This is what is already programmed in the simulator as a second Heat Exchanger

Model and that can be selected in the Parameters page of the Design tab.

3.7 Move to that page and change from End Point to Weighted and select
10 intervals for both exchanger sides.

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Q6: Does the exchanger calculate a different UA with the new model?
Which one?

3.8 Move again to the Performance tab and create a Heat Flow vs.
Temperature plot in the Plots page.

SAVE YOUR CASE AS: HEAT TRANSFER_EXERCISE 3

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EXERCISE 4. SHELL AND TUBES HEAT EXCHANGERS (RATING MODE)

Instead of building a new heat exchanger, it is proposed to benefit from an existing one that is not being
used. As explained in the Introduction, the simulator has some rating models among
the heat exchangers.

For rigorous rating calculations, it is advised to use the Dynamic Rating Model even if
the calculations to be performed will be restricted to the Steady State environment.

The abovementioned existing heat exchanger has the dimensions shown in the Spec
Sheet in the Appendix A of this exercise (Page 22).

4.1 Move to the Parameters page of the Design tab and switch from Weighted
Heat Exchanger Model to Dynamic Rating.

4.2 The Dynamic Rating Model still uses a simplified version of the pressure drop
and heat transfer coefficient calculations if the user does not force it to
apply the Detailed Model. This must be done on the Parameters page
of the Rating tab by selecting the Detailed radio button:

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An Overspecified message in yellow appears.

This is because in a Rating model the pressure drop is going to be calculated as a

function of the heat exchanger dimensions.

4.3 Delete the previously specified pressure drops in both sides of the
exchanger.

4.4 Because the outlet temperature will be as well a function of the heat
exchanger UA, which will be calculated from the dimensions, it is better
to delete as well the tubes outlet temperature.

Now, we can begin to enter the appropriate information in the Spec Sheet in the
different pages of the heat exchanger:

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Q7: Does the exchanger calculate a different UA with the new model?
Which one?

Q8: What is the outlet temperature of the Liquid stream? Would this
exchanger be suitable for the original purpose?

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APPENDIX A

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Customer Job No.
Reference No.
Address Proposal No.
Plant Location Date Rev.
Service of Unit Item No.
Size 440-5500 Type BHM Horizontal Connected 1 parallel 1 series
Surf./Unit (Gross) m² Shells/Unit 1 Surface/Shell (Gross) m²
PERFORMANCE OF ONE UNIT
Fluid Allocation Shell Side Tube Side
Fluid Name

Fluid Quantity, Total kg/h

Vapour

Liquid

Steam

Water

Noncondensable

Temperature (In/Out) °C

Density kg / m³

Viscosity centipoise

Molecular Weight, Vapor

Molecular Weight, Noncondensable

Specific Heat kJ/kg K

Thermal Conductivity W/m K

Latent Heat kJ/kg

Inlet Pressure bar(abs)

Velocity m/s

Pressure Drop , Allow. / Calc. bar

Fouling Resistance (Min.) m² K/W 0.00018 0.00018 (0.00021 referred to OD)

Heat Exchanged kW MTD °C
Transfer Rate, Service Dirty Clean W/m² K
CONSTRUCTION OF ONE SHELL Sketch (Bundle/Nozzle Orientation)

Shell Side Tube Side

Design/Test bar(g)
Pressure
Design Temperature °C

No. Passes per Shell 1 4

Corrosion Allowance

Connections In

Size & Out

Ratings Inter.

Tube No. 244 OD 19.05 mm Thk 1.65 mm Length 5500 mm Pitch 23.81 mm 30deg
Tube Type plain Material Carbon Steel
Shell Carbon Steel ID 440 OD mm Shell Cover (Integ.)(Remov.)
Channel or Bonnet Carbon Steel Channel Cover
Tubesheet - Stationary Carbon Steel Tubesheet-Floating
Floating Head Cover Impingement Protection
Baffles-Cross Type Single Segmental % Cut 25 Spacing c/c 120 Inlet mm
Baffles-Long Seal Type
Supports-Tube U-Bend Type
Bypass Seal Arrangement Tube-Tubesheet Joint
Expansion Joint Type

rV2 - Inlet Nozzle Bundle Entrance Bundle Exit kg/m s²

Gaskets Shell Side Tube Side
Floating Head

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Code Requirements Tema Class R

Weight/Shell Filled with water Bundle kg
Remarks

EXERCISE 5. AIR COOLERS

As a side benefit, of using a process stream was that Bottoms was cooled down
close to the desired temperature. However, it still needs additional cooling to reach
a desired 60 oC of final temperature.

It is proposed to use an Air Cooler to accomplish this final cooling of the shell side
outlet stream:

A two tube rows and two tube passes configuration of Air Cooler will be used. The
air in the zone can be considered at 25 oC. It can be assumed that inside the tubes,
there is a pressure drop of 40 kPa.

Q9: If the final desired temperature is 60 oC, what UA is needed in the Air
Cooler?

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Q10: What is the calculated outlet air temperature?

SAVE YOUR CASE AS: HEAT TRANSFER_EXERCISE 5

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