Determination of exchanger heat efficiency

Heat exchanger is designed to efficiently transfer or exchange heat from one matter to another.
Mediums used are gas or liquid or both. Some fluids that can be used are water oil and moving air. In the
case of the experiment performed, both liquid was used as mediums specifically water. The media may
be separated by a solid wall to prevent mixing or may be in direct contact. Another common use of heat
exchangers is to pre-heat a cold fluid entering a heated process system using heat from hot fluid exiting
the system. This reduces the energy input necessary to heat the incoming fluid to working temperature.
In the experiment, a shell and tube type heat exchanger was experimented on which is the most
common type of heat exchanger. It consists of multiple parallel tubes inside an individual cylinder in
which the cylinder serves as the shell of the system. The tubes and the shell have separate inlet and
separate outlet of water therefore making the system have two inlets and two outlets in total. Due to its
tubular construction, this type of exchanger can handle large pressure. The number of shell side passes is
controlled by the number of internal baffles. If there are no baffles then there will be one shell side pass.
Thus, in the set-up of the shell and tube type, there are no baffles. As for the number of tube passes, it is
called as two tube pass as fluid enters and exists the heat exchanger at the same end. Another is set-up
offered by the multi heat exchanger unit is the concentric tube type, the simplest type of heat exchanger
as two tubes of different diameters share the same center where either hot or cold fluid pass through
either the two tubes. A plate exchanger consists of a series of parallel plates that are placed one above
the other so as to allow the formation of a series of channels for fluids to flow between them. The space
between two adjacent plates forms the channel in which the fluid flows. Inlet and outlet holes at the
corners of the plates allow hot and cold fluids through alternating channels in the exchanger so that a
plate is always in contact on one side with the hot fluid and the other with the cold.

For the first two types, parallel and counterflow movement of fluid will be observed on. As for the
foremost, only counterflow is applicable to the set-up. The fluids within heat exchangers typically flow
rapidly, to facilitate the transfer of heat through forced convection. This rapid flow results in pressure
losses in the fluids. The efficiency of heat exchangers refers to how well they transfer heat relative to the
pressure loss they incur. In the experiment, the analysis of pressure losses is done through the actual
values of temperature then getting the efficiency through these values. A higher efficiency implies lower
pressure losses and a lower tells otherwise.

The experiment will help the determination of the set-up that is best for the post application of the heat
exchanged whether for small scale or large scale use. Therefore considering not only the cost as well as
the rate of return but also the performance of the heat exchanger.