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Intergraph CAS
Ray Delaforce
We get many questions from users wanting to know why their heat exchangers refuse to produce
a report. This article does not teach you how a build a heat exchanger. Its purpose is to diagnose
the reasons why, when you have built one, errors are reported.
Build the Heat Exchanger with the first tubesheet on the left (or bottom)
Consider these two pictures:
In the left illustration, the tubesheet is on the left hand side, and in the right illustration, the
tubesheet is on the right hand side. PV Elite, by default builds the heat exchanger with the
tubesheet on the left. Shown above is a U-Tube heat exchanger; however this could represent
any type of heat exchanger.
PV Elite enables you to build the heat exchanger either way, but it is less problematic if you put
the tubesheet on the left. If you put the tubesheet on the right, you will have to juggle with the
input to get the 3D model to look right.
In the PV Elite heat exchanger dialog screen, this is where you have the choice of putting the
tubesheet on the right or the left.
Instead of a horizontal heat exchanger, you may have a vertical heat exchanger. The same
principle applies. We strongly recommend you place the tubesheet on the bottom to avoid the
problems discussed above.
The basic types on Heat Exchanger
Whether you are building a heat exchanger with two tubesheets or one (in the case of a U-Tube
or floating head type), the first tubesheet is what you enter first. There are four basic
configurations. Here they are:
The tubesheet is welded to both the channel side and the
shell side.
A
We shall deal with these tubesheet configurations one by one. A very important point is to
determine which are the tube side (or channel side) components, and which are the shell side
components. This is the most common pitfall where users make mistakes.
Give all your exchanger components meaningful names
One of the most common mistakes made by users when they send a file for us to diagnose is that
they do not give the components of the heat exchanger meaningful descriptions. This field in PV
Elite is put there for a purpose.
Although naming components is not necessary for PV Elite to function properly, not doing so is
a bad practice. This field is put there as an aid to the user.
Naming the components is a very useful practice, especially in the case of heat exchangers
because it is very important that PV Elite knows which components are on the tube side, and
which components are on the shell side.
We tell PV Elite that we are designing a heat exchanger here, but PV Elite has no idea what are
shell side components and what are tube side components. So, this is the starting point of heat
exchanger design:
We now have the descriptions and node (The From Node and the To Node) numbers all
packaged together.
Instead of just seeing Node number, we now have descriptions to work with.
A Common Mistake
Suppose you were to have this situation:
Here, the tubesheet exists in one component the main shell. Part of that shell is on the tube
side, and part of that shell is on the shell side. PV Elite cannot take one component and split it
into a shell side and the tube side. The correct way to build this model is to have a separate
channel, and separate shell like this:
Now, PV Elite can see a tube side component, and a shell side component.
This simple method will ensure PV Elite knows exactly where to place
the tubesheet, and your 3D model will look right. Also we need to tell
PV Elite the configuration of this tubesheet:
PV Elite now knows all the important points about the placement
of the tubesheet.
We must also tell PV Elite what the configuration is:
The channel is item 10-20 and the shell is item 40-50. The usual
convention in the case of the Tubesheet sandwiched between two flanges
is to attach the tubesheet to the channel flange, item 20 (Nodes 20-30).
1. The channel flange is From Node is 20
2. The flange is 7.19 inches long.
This how we convey this information to PV Elite:
We must tell PV Elite the tubesheet is extended as a flange, but, the bolt
load is not transferred to the tubesheet:
And:
Whenever you have a tubesheet attached to the left of any item, you will
have to play around with this length until the 3D model looks right.