Final Design Report Design of Secondary Heat Exchanger for the HT3R

Submitted to: Steven Biegalski, Ph.D., P.E., Assistant Professor Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory Austin, Texas

Prepared by: Kevin Thuot Scott Waters, Team Leader David Wogan Mechanical Engineering Design Projects Program The University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas August 8, 2006

Final Design Report Design of Secondary Heat Exchanger for the HT3R

Submitted to: Steven Biegalski, Ph.D., P.E., Assistant Professor Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory Austin, Texas

Prepared by: Kevin Thuot Scott Waters, Team Leader David Wogan Mechanical Engineering Design Projects Program The University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas August 8, 2006

High Temperature Teaching and Test Reactor Pre-Conceptual Design Secondary Heat Exchanger Design Report
Prepared by Kevin Thuot, Scott Waters, and David Wogan For the University of Texas of the Permian Basin

GA CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION: THIS DOCUMENT WITH ANY ATTACHMENTS CONTAINS GENERAL ATOMICS (GA) CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. ANY TRANSMITTAL OF THIS DOCUMENT OUTSIDE GA WILL BE IN CONFIDENCE AND SUBJECT TO THE NON-DISCLOSURE PROVISIONS OF THE APPLICABLE AGREEMENT OR AGREEMENTS. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS DOCUMENT MAY BE USED BY THE RECIPIENT ONLY FOR THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH IT WAS TRANSMITTED AND MAY NOT BE COMMUNICATED TO OTHERS EXCEPT WITH THE WRITTEN CONSENT OF GA.

August 8, 2006

GA 2175 (1199E)

PROJECT CONTROL ISSUE SUMMARY

DOC. CODE PROJECT DOCUMENT NO. REV.

0
TITLE:

High Temperature Teaching and Test Reactor Pre-Conceptual Design Secondary Heat Exchanger Design Report
CM APPROVAL / DATE APPROVALS REV. PREPARED BY RESOURCE/ SUPPORT PROJECT REVISION DESCRIPTION/ W.O. NO.

K. Thuot W.S. Waters D. Wogan

X GA PROPRIETARY INFORMATION THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF GENERAL ATOMICS. ANY TRANSMITTAL OF THIS DOCUMENT OUTSIDE GA WILL BE IN CONFIDENCE. EXCEPT WITH THE WRITTEN CONSENT OF GA, (1) THIS DOCUMENT MAY NOT BE COPIED IN WHOLE OR IN PART AND WILL BE RETURNED UPON RQUEST OR WHEN NO LONGER NEEDED BY RECIPIENT AND (2) INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE COMMUNICATED TO OTHERS AND MAY BE USED BY RECIPIENT ONLY FOR THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH IT WAS TRANSMITTED. NO GA PROPRIETARY INFORMATION PAGE ii OF 59

Acknowledgments

The Secondary Heat Exchanger Team would like to thank our sponsor, The Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory, for the opportunity to work on this project. The ability to be involved with such an important project from the beginning phase has been very rewarding. We would also like to thank our faculty advisor Dr. David Bogard for his continued guidance and exceptional insight into the details of our project. Thanks must also be given to Dr. Richard Crawford and our teaching assistant, Lalit Karlapalem, for their assistance with the written reports and presentations.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page Issue/Approval Summary Acknowledgments..................................................................................................................i Table of Contents................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures........................................................................................................................ vii List of Tables......................................................................................................................... ix List of Acronyms................................................................................................................... xi Variable Nomenclature.......................................................................................................... xiii Executive Summary............................................................................................................... xvii 1. Introduction................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 2. Sponsor Background...................................................................................... 1 Project Background........................................................................................ 2 Problem Statement......................................................................................... 5 Requirements................................................................................................. 5 Constraints..................................................................................................... 5 Deliverables................................................................................................... 6 Specification Sheet.........................................................................................6

Patent Search.............................................................................................................. 9 2.1 U.S. Patent #6,888.,910: Methods and Apparatuses for Removing Thermal Energy from a Nuclear Reactor............................... 9 2.2 U.S. Patent #4,699,211: Segmental Baffle High Performance Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger..................................................................... 10

2.3 3.

U.S. Patent #4,483,392: Air to Air Heat Exchanger...................................... 10

Alternative Designs.................................................................................................... 12 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Traditional Cooling Tower............................................................................ 14 Heat Pipes...................................................................................................... 16 Radiative Heat Transfer................................................................................. 18 Flat Plate Heat Exchanger.............................................................................. 20 Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger .................................................................... 22 Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger..................................................................... 23 3.6.1 Shell and Tube Configurations.......................................................... 23 3.6.2 Shell and Tube Vendor Information.................................................. 25 3.7 Air Cooled Heat Exchanger........................................................................... 27 3.7.1 ACHE Design and Operation.............................................................27 3.7.2 ACHE Vendor Information................................................................30 3.8 Recuperator.................................................................................................... 30

4.

Project Solution.......................................................................................................... 33 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Shell and Tube Design................................................................................... 33 ACHE Design................................................................................................ 39 Design Comparison........................................................................................ 42 Economic Analysis........................................................................................ 43

5.

Computer Models.......................................................................................................45 5.1 5.2 Heat Exchanger Simulation........................................................................... 45 Matlab Codes................................................................................................. 47 5.2.1 Mass Flow Analysis........................................................................... 47

iv

5.2.2 Gas Calculator.................................................................................... 48 5.3 6. Solid Modeling.............................................................................................. 49

Recommendations and Conclusions.......................................................................... 52 6.1 Future Design Recommendations.................................................................. 52 6.1.1 Gas Exit Temperature Control System.............................................. 53 6.1.2 Dual Material ACHE......................................................................... 54 6.1.3 Air Exhaust Temperature................................................................... 55 6.1.4 Air Filtration...................................................................................... 56 6.2 Conclusions.................................................................................................... 57

7.

References.................................................................................................................. 59

Appendix A: Gantt Chart......................................................................................... ........... A-1 Appendix B: Radiative Heat Transfer Analysis.................................................................. B-1 Appendix C: Vendor Information....................................................................................... C-1 Appendix D: Simulink Model............................................................................................. D-1 D.1 D.2 Simulink Model Validation............................................................................D-2 Simulink Code............................................................................................... D-5

Appendix E: Matlab Code/Analysis.................................................................................... E-1 E.1 E.2 E.3 Mass Flow Analysis....................................................................................... E-2 Air Cooled Heat Exchanger Design............................................................... E-4 Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Design........................................................ E-8

vi

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3. Figure 4. Figure 5. Figure 6. Figure 7. Figure 8. Figure 9. Figure 10. Figure 11. Figure 12. Figure 13. Figure 14. Figure 15. Figure 16. Figure 17. Figure 18. Figure 19. Figure 20. Figure 21. Figure 22. Engineering and Construction Schedule Through 2012................................ 2 Reactor Schematic......................................................................................... 4 Hyperbolic Cooling Tower............................................................................ 14 Fill Media....................................................................................................... 15 Heat Pipe Diagram......................................................................................... 17 Variation of Fluid Temperature as a Function of Pipe Length...................... 19 Corrugated Plates........................................................................................... 21 Heatric PCHE.................................................................................................22 Fixed Tube-Sheet........................................................................................... 23 U-tube............................................................................................................ 24 Floating Head................................................................................................. 24 Des Champs Thermo-T Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger.............................. 26 ACHE Operation............................................................................................ 28 Forced Draft ACHE....................................................................................... 29 Induced Draft ACHE..................................................................................... 29 Schematic with Recuperator.......................................................................... 31 Nitrogen Gas Path Through Shell and Tube HX........................................... 36 Air Path Through Shell and Tube.................................................................. 36 Baffle Window Effect on Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient........................ 37 Secondary Heat Exchanger Simulink Model................................................. 46 Dependence of Outlet Temperature on Mass Flow Rate............................... 48 Ecodyne Air Cooled Heat Exchanger............................................................ 49

vii

Figure 23. Figure 24. Figure B.1 Figure B.2 Figure D.1. Figure D.2.

Solidworks Model of Ecodyne Design.......................................................... 50 Shell and Tube Solidworks Model................................................................. 51 Heat Transferred Versus Pipe Length............................................................ B-3 Fluid Temperature Versus Pipe Length......................................................... B-3 Exit Temperature Dependence on Gas Flow Rate......................................... D-3 Pressure Drop Dependence on Gas Flow Rate.............................................. D-4

viii

LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Table 2. Table 3. Table 4. Table 5. Table 6. Table 7. Table C.1. Requirements................................................................................................. 5 Constraints..................................................................................................... 6 Specification Sheet.........................................................................................8 Proposed Solutions........................................................................................ 13 Shell and Tube Properties.............................................................................. 35 ACHE Properties........................................................................................... 41 Heat Exchanger Model Comparison.............................................................. 42 Vendor List.................................................................................................... C-2

ix

ACRONYMS ACHE EPA GA HT3R MWt NETL NRC PCHE PHX PVC SHX TEMA TRIGA UT-PB Air Cooled Heat Exchanger Environmental Protection Agency General Atomics High Temperature Teaching and Test Reactor Megawatts-thermal Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory Nuclear Regulatory Commission Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger Primary Heat Exchanger Polyvinyl Chloride Secondary Heat Exchanger Tubular Exchanger Manufacturers Association Teaching, Research, Isotope, General Atomics The University of Texas -Permian Basin

xi

xii

VARIABLE NOMENCLATURE A Afr Cp F f G Gt g hi ho IDt Kc Kt k Lt

& m

Area Frontal Area Specific Heat Heat Exchanger Correction Factor Friction Factor Mass Velocity Tube Side Mass Velocity Acceleration Due to Gravity Internal Convection Coefficient External Convection Coefficient Tube Inner Diameter Contraction Loss Coefficient Expansion Loss Coefficient Thermal Conductivity Length of Tubes Mass Flow Rate Number of Baffles Number of Tube Passes Number of Effective Tube Rows in Crossflow Number of Effective Tube Rows in Baffle Window Thermal Effectiveness Heat Rate

Nb Np Ntcc Ntcw P
& Q

xiii

R R1 Rb Rs r1 r2 T U V

Heat Capacity Ratio Correction Factor for Baffle Leakage Effects Correction Factor for Bundle Bypass Effects Correction Factor for Unequal Baffle Spacing Tube Inner Radius Tube Outer Radius Temperature Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient Velocity Work Emissivity Stefan-Boltzmann Constant Ideal Tube Bank Pressure Drop Pressure Drop due to Elevation Change Pressure Drop in Headers Pressure Drop in Pipes Total Pressure Drop in Shell Total Pressure Drop in Tubes Pressure Drop Through Baffle Windows Log Mean Temperature Difference Density Density of Fluid at Inlet

& W

!
!
!Pb ,i

!PE !PH !PP

!PS

!PT
!PW !Tlm

!i

xiv

!m

Density of Fluid at Middle of Inlet and Outlet Density of Fluid at Outlet Ratio of Free-Flow Area to Frontal Area

!o
!t

xv

xvi

Executive Summary The following Final Project Report documents the work that the Secondary Heat Exchanger Team has performed throughout the Summer 2006 session. The Secondary Heat Exchanger Team was responsible for researching and designing a heat exchanger capable of removing 25 MWt from the High Temperature Teaching and Test Reactor planned for construction at The University of Texas Permian Basin campus. The Secondary Heat Exchanger (SHX) must be a gas to gas heat exchanger capable of withstanding pressures above 3 MPa on the hot fluid side. Nitrogen gas at 850oC will enter the SHX and exit at 450oC to be returned to the Primary Heat Exchanger (PHX). Our team looked into a variety of heat exchanger designs to determine if any met our specifications. Wet cooling towers, heat pipes, radiative heat transfer, flat plate, printed circuit, shell and tube, and air cooled heat exchangers were researched. The cooling tower, heat pipe, radiative, flat plate, and printed circuit technologies were determined to not be feasible given the high temperature and pressure application. The shell and tube and air cooled heat exchangers were determined to be viable candidates for the SHX. The shell and tube heat exchanger is the most common heat exchanger in industrial applications. Several drawbacks exist due to high pressure on the coolant loop, and difficulty with cleaning the tube bundles. Our team designed and optimized a four module shell and tube heat exchanger in Matlab. The analytical modeling for both the shell and tube and air cooled heat exchanger is discussed at length in the report. The resulting shell and tube design has an overall heat transfer coefficient of 102 W/m-K and a tube surface area of 605 m2. The pressure drops are 55 and 22 kPa on the tube and shell side, respectively. It was calculated that the pumping power required to reject the full output of the reactor would be $1197 per 8-hour day, assuming ideal blowers. The air cooled heat exchanger was also modeled in Matlab. Comparing the designs properties to that of the shell and tube heat exchanger, the air cooled heat exchanger was clearly superior. This high temperature exchanger has an overall heat transfer coefficient of 126 W/m-K and a tube surface area of 613 m2. The pressure drops are 47 and 2.13 kPa on the hot gas and cold air side, respectively. It was determined that the pumping power required to reject the full output of the reactor would be $291 per 8hour day, assuming ideal blowers. The air cooled heat exchanger has roughly 25% of the operating costs of the shell and tube heat exchanger. Also, maintenance is easier to perform on an air cooled heat exchanger because the tube bundles are exposed. To proceed with this design, an engineering design firm should be contracted to create a rigorous design. This custom design can then be presented to air cooled heat exchanger manufacturers. This two stage process is necessary because the high temperature, high pressure conditions are beyond the capabilities of commercially available designs.

xvii

xviii

INTRODUCTION

This project will support the design development of the nuclear reactor to be built at the campus of The University of Texas Permian Basin (UT-PB). Specifically, the engineering team will design the secondary heat exchanger to reject the thermal output of the reactor into the environment. The Mechanical Engineering Design Project Team at The University of Texas at Austin consists of the following three students: Kevin Thuot, Scott Waters and David Wogan. The team has worked closely with the project sponsor, The Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory (NETL), the faculty advisor Dr. Bogard, and three other design project teams. These other project teams are working on separate parts of the nuclear plant design.

1.1

Sponsor Background NETL is The University of Texas at Austins nuclear research laboratory directed

by Dr. Sheldon Landsberger. The lab is located on the J. J. Pickle Research campus. The lab houses a 1.1 MW TRIGA nuclear reactor that is used for educational and research purposes. The laboratory provides various services such as neutron and gamma

activation analysis and irradiation. Two of the labs stated objectives are to educate the next generation of leaders in nuclear science and engineering [and] conduct leading research at the forefront of the national and international nuclear community [1].

1.2

Project Background The University of Texas system is currently working with General Atomics (GA)

to design a 25 MWt gas cooled nuclear reactor to be located at the UT-PB campus and completed by 2012. The current engineering and construction schedule is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Engineering and Construction Schedule Through 2012 [2].

The reactor will be called the High-Temperature Teaching and Test Reactor (HT3R) and will serve as an educational tool that will enable advanced research. The major differences between this reactor and previous reactor designs are the use of helium as a coolant and a graphite moderator. All nuclear reactors currently in operation in the United States use water as both coolant and moderator [3]. Helium has been proposed for this new design because of its properties in high temperature environments. Water undergoes a phase transformation within the operating temperature range.

The HT3R will be used to perform leading research by utilizing the high temperatures produced by the reactor. The focus of the research will include increasing the efficiencies of nuclear-driven electricity production, the use of proliferation resistant fuels, and developing high temperature refractory materials. The proposed reactor will generate up to 25 MWt of heat that can be used in a number of on-site research laboratories. The facility will contain the reactor core, cooled by a closed loop of helium. The helium will travel out of the reactor vessel into the primary heat exchanger (PHX). The thermal energy from the reactor will be transferred to a secondary coolant loop composed of pure nitrogen. The hot nitrogen will then pass into the laboratories for

experimentation and then be sent into the secondary heat exchanger (SHX). It is also possible that the hot gas will be sent directly from the PHX to the SHX, bypassing the laboratories. This will be the case when the reactor comes online because the labs will not be completed at that time. In the SHX, ambient air will be used as a tertiary fluid to cool the nitrogen to approximately 450C. The nitrogen gas will recirculate to the PHX, while the air will exhaust to the environment. One of the laboratories to be built in conjunction with the nuclear reactor is a process heat lab that will be used to test methods for desalinating water, making synfuels, producing hydrogen, and other process heat applications [4]. Another lab will use the heated gas from the reactor to operate a Brayton cycle to test new power generation methods. Current reactor designs typically run Rankine cycles. The Brayton cycle provides a way to increase the overall efficiency of a power plant. Finally, a radiation lab will be built to research radioactive materials and advanced nuclear fuel

cycles [4]. A preliminary schematic of the reactor is shown below in Figure 2. The SHX is shown in the lower right corner of the figure.

Figure 2. Reactor Schematic [2].

Four mechanical engineering senior design project teams were selected to initiate the pre-conceptual plant design. Together they designed the primary and secondary heat exchangers, optimized the secondary coolant composition, and developed an integrated plant system model. This design teams task was to design the SHX that will ultimately reject the excess heat to the atmosphere. It is necessary for the heat exchanger to transfer up to 25 MWt from the secondary nitrogen coolant to ambient air.

1.3

Problem Statement The goal of this project is to develop a heat exchanger capable of rejecting the full

output of the HT3R reactor to the atmosphere.

1.4

Requirements The initial requirements for our team were laid out in the UT-PB and General

Atomics information packet. A few of the requirements were deemed unnecessary and after discussions with UT-PB and General Atomics, they were removed. Requirement five was added during the course of the design process. The final requirements are listed below in Table 1.

Table 1. Requirements [4]. Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Requirement Must dissipate 25 MWt Must be able to operate with an inlet temperature of 950C Must be able operate at a pressure of at least 3.1 MPa on the hot gas side Must be able to withstand and/or mitigate the effects of inlet flow path mal-distributions Primary gas inlet temperature must be 450oC Must be a gas to gas heat exchanger. Must be able to maintain cooling capability through all anticipated operational and design basis events

1.5

Constraints Our project faced constraints from several different sources. Since the heat will

be dumped directly into the environment, environmental regulations concerning emissions, microbe formation and thermal exhaust were considered in the design. Cost and schedule constraints were determined by UT-PB. Also, certain design parameters

such as the composition of the secondary gas and inlet and outlet temperatures have been determined by the other groups involved in the project. This required all four groups to coordinate and maintain open communication during the iterative design process.

Table 2. Constraints [4]. Number Constraint 1 Must meet environmental guidelines for heat dissipation 2 Material must withstand high temperature, possibly environment 3 Water supply is limited in West Texas 4 Engineering cost of $150 million for entire reactor 5 Construction cost of $100 million for entire reactor 6 Able to implement by 2012 [2]

corrosive

1.6

Deliverables In addition to the heat exchanger specifications presented in this final report, the

design team has provided NETL, UT-PB, and GA with several items. A Solidworks model of the SHX is included as a dimensional reference. A Simulink model has been created to simulate the operation of the heat exchanger throughout the range of operating conditions. Also, the design team has provided an estimate of the engineering and construction cost and schedule.

1.7

Specification Sheet A specification sheet, shown in Table 3, was created to aid the design process.

This sheet is divided into a requirements section and a constraints section. The functional requirement is that the heat exchanger must be able to dissipate the entire amount of thermal energy produced by the helium cooled reactor. This scenario would arise when 6

the reactor is running at full power and the labs are not in use. To prevent overheating of the reactor, the entire energy output must be dissipated. The constraints of the project include fluid, thermal, material, geometrical, environmental, and service life constraints. Most of these constraints came directly from UT-PB, such as the operating pressure and flow distribution of the gas. The geometric and service life constraints are common design requirement for heat exchanger design and life expectancies of power plant components [5]. The environmental constraint pertains to the thermal exhaust of the heat exchanger. It is undesirable to have an exhaust temperature that would be harmful to the local ecosystem. We were unable to find any regulations that set limits on this exhaust temperature. In response, we included methods for reducing the exhaust temperature, should the temperature need to be lowered.

Table 3. Specification Sheet. Secondary System Heat Exchanger: Specification Sheet D/W Functional Requirements/Constraints Functional Requirements
D Dissipate all thermal energy produced in reactor (up to 25MWt)

Constraints
Fluid D D W W W D D D D D Flow distribution uncertainty of at least 10% Operate at a pressure of at least 3.1 MPa on gas side Pressure drop (nitrogen-side) <60 kPa Pressure drop (air-side) <30 kPa fluid velocity < 30 m/s Thermal Operate with secondary inlet temp of at least 850 C Reduce temp of N2 mixture by at least 400 C Secondary side heat transfer correlation uncertainty >20% Primary HX gas inlet must be 450 C Material Material conductivity uncertainty of at least 10% Geometry Increased HX surface area to compensate for plugging (10%) Tube diameter (TEMA) range: .25"<d<2" Environmental W D W Air exhaust from exchanger <450 C Quality life expectancy of at least 20 years life expectancy of at least 30 years
o o o o

D D

PATENT SEARCH

A search of the U.S. patent database was performed to gather ideas for heat exchanger designs. The patents reviewed discuss methods for removing heat or for improving the rate of heat removed from a hot fluid.

2.1

U.S. Patent 6,888,910: Methods and Apparatuses for Removing Thermal Energy from a Nuclear Reactor Heat produced from a nuclear reactor can be used throughout the system to power

turbines and research laboratories. The heat must be effectively transferred from the reactor so that other systems can operate at maximum efficiency. The method of heat removal from the reactor vessel is crucial to maintaining a working system. Patent number 6,888,910 discusses different methods for removing thermal energy from a nuclear reactor. The patent describes the methods in which heat can be transferred from the reactor vessel to other gasses in the system. Heat pipes are discussed as a possible solution for removing the thermal energy. This patent discusses different methods of removing heat from a nuclear reactor. As mentioned in the patent filing, heat pipes are one possibility for transferring the thermal energy from a nuclear reactor core to a coolant fluid. As discussed later in this report, our team investigated a number of heat removal systems, one of which was a heat pipe. The discussion of heat pipes in this patent filing prompted the team to research the possibility of their use in nuclear applications [6].

2.2

U.S. Patent 4,699,211: Segmental Baffle High Performance Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Patent number 4,699,211 describes a baffle pattern in a shell and tube heat

exchanger. Baffles are used in the shell to direct the fluid over the tube bundle and are also used to support the tubes in the tube bundle. The baffles block an area of the shell so that the shell side fluid must pass through the open space of the baffle window. These baffle windows occupy between 15-50% of the shell cross-sectional area. By alternating the location of the baffle windows, the shell side fluid flow can be constantly redirected over the tubes. This particular patent describes a baffle pattern that rotates the location of the baffle window by 90o for each baffle. This arrangement causes a helical fluid motion that can increase the heat transfer by increasing shell side fluid turbulence. This design also decreases the pressure drop of the shell side fluid in comparison with a more common 180o baffle rotation by slightly reducing the air path length. This reduces the amount of friction felt by the air against the tube bundle [7].

2.3

U.S. Patent 4,483,392: Air to Air Heat Exchanger Patent number 4,483,392 describes a type of air cooled heat exchanger.

According to the patent, hot process gas is passed into a series of small tubes. The tubes cross over an air duct several times by making 180 turns at the ends. The tubes are enclosed in a housing and a fan creates an air flow over the tubes. The passing air convects the heat away from the surface of the tubes.

10

This design is conceptually similar to the air cooled heat exchangers that we reviewed for our final design. The tube configuration would be instructive if it were decided that the heat exchanger needed to be double pass rather than single pass. The bends of the tubes are arranged to minimize the header size. Since the high temperature alloy that will be used to construct the heat exchanger is very expensive, reducing the amount of material required will be important [8]. Like the commercially available heat exchangers, the technology presented in the patent does not meet our pressure requirements. The heat exchanger is only designed for pressures up to 310 kPa. The high pressure and temperature requirements will make our final design different from preexisting designs [9].

11

ALTERNATIVE DESIGNS

This section provides an overview of all the design solutions considered by the project team. The different technologies are evaluated by several criteria. The major criteria considered include temperature and pressure limitations, construction costs, power requirements, and pressure drop. A complete list of contacted vendors is available in Appendix C. Table 4 compares all the evaluated technologies.

12

Table 4: Proposed Solutions.

13

3.1

Traditional Cooling Tower Nuclear power plants currently in operation typically use water as their reactor

coolant. Because of this, wet cooling towers are a common method of removing waste heat from the system. Steam leaves the reactor, moves through a Rankine power

generation cycle, and is then delivered to the cooling tower as hot water. A large scale hyperbolic cooling tower is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Hyperbolic Cooling Tower [10].

In this type of cooling tower, the hot water is sprayed from a high point in the tower and allowed to fall to the bottom. As the water falls, it hits and is spread over fill material. The purpose of the fill material is to break up the flow of the falling water and increase the total wetted area. Fill is often made from corrugated PVC plastic [11]. Different types of fill are shown in Figure 4.

14

Figure 4. Fill Media [12].

Two modes of heat transfer occur in a cooling tower. One is convective heat transfer from the hot water to the air. The other, more significant type of heat transfer is the evaporation of a portion of the hot water. The heat absorbed in the evaporation of a small percentage of the hot water results in a drop in temperature for the remaining body of water. Evaporation of water consumes a large amount of heat and therefore, is an effective way of removing heat from a system containing hot water [11]. Although a cooling tower system is a common way to remove heat from nuclear reactors, there are several reasons why we have rejected it as a viable option. The simplest reason is that one of our heat exchanger requirements mandated a gas to gas heat exchanger. There are also design considerations that make water cooling a poor solution. The HT3R will run loops of helium and nitrogen, but not water. Since water is not part of the original system, the process becomes more complicated than simply piping hot water from the reactor core to the cooling tower. Instead of being able to transfer the heat from the hot nitrogen in the secondary loop directly to outside air, the heat would be transferred first from the nitrogen into water, then from water to outside air. This would

15

result in an extra fluid loop that would include an additional heat exchanger, pump, and piping. An additional loop would also require extra maintenance and cleaning. For

cooling towers, cleaning is not a trivial matter. In 1993, there were three separate outbreaks of Legionnaires Disease in the U.S. that killed three people. All three

outbreaks were traced back to microbes formed in improperly cleaned cooling towers [13]. The lack of a large available water supply is another problem with using a water cooling system. A large amount of water would be required initially to get the system running. Makeup water would need to be added constantly to replace the evaporating water [14]. Water would be a major investment in the startup and operating costs of the reactor. Air can be pulled directly from the environment and has no acquisition cost. For all these reasons, we have determined that a cooling tower is not an appropriate solution to our heat exchange problem.

3.2

Heat Pipe Another method of heat removal our team assessed was a system of heat pipes. A

heat pipe is a closed system that can be used to transfer heat from one area to another. Heat pipes can transfer thermal energy at a very high rate and capacity with almost no heat loss [15]. The design of a heat pipe is simple, consisting of a thermally conductive metal tube filled with a coolant fluid. Fluids capable of operating in our temperature range are sodium and lithium [16]. The fluid inside the tube is at both its saturation temperature

16

and pressure. When a section of the pipe is exposed to elevated temperatures the fluid inside changes to the vapor state. The differences in density between the liquid and vapor cause the two fluids to separate. The hot vapor moves to the other end of the heat pipe where a tertiary fluid removes heat by convection from the outside of the tube. A schematic of a heat pipe is depicted in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Heat Pipe Diagram [17].

The movement of the working fluid can be aided by the use of a wick and capillary structure or an inclined orientation [15]. A wick and capillary structure allows the condensed fluid to travel back to the hot side of the heat pipe. Raising one end of the heat pipe would also allow the fluid to move from the hot to cold side based on the change in density and elevation. The operating temperatures range from 600 to 1200C for sodium, and 1000 to 1800C for lithium. Care must be taken to choose a working fluid that matches the application for which it will be used. If a fluids saturation temperature and pressure are 17

too high for an application, there will be inadequate heat transfer because the fluid will not evaporate. Our team has decided that heat pipes are not a viable solution. The major

problem with using heat pipes is that the inlet temperature of the SHX is variable. During the initial phases of the project, only the reactor and PHX will be in operation. Our SHX must be capable of removing heat at an inlet temperature of 850C. When the process heat laboratory and turbine lab are used, the fluid temperature the SHX receives will be significantly lower. Heat pipes are not suited for this variable inlet temperature. Solutions for this problem include having a modular system containing different banks of heat pipes each with a different coolant. This would account for the different temperature ranges that the SHX could experience. However, this solution is not viable due to the large number and multiple types of heat pipes that would be required.

3.3

Radiative Heat Transfer A more unconventional method of heat removal the team has considered is

radiative heat transfer. A radiative solution can take advantage of the fact that the fluid temperature coming out of the core is much higher than the surrounding temperature. Equation 3.1 governs radiative heat transfer.
4 4 Q = "#A(THOT ! TCOLD )

(3.1)

The equation shows that the total heat transfer is proportional to the difference between the two temperatures raised to the fourth power. Conceptually, this setup would require a length of finned pipe. This setup would lower the hot fluid temperature enough to avoid using high temperature alloys in the

18

SHX. Another stage of cooling would still be required to remove the remainder of the heat. Although the idea is an interesting concept, analysis has shown that the actual amount of heat transferred is too low to justify the cost of the system. The analysis is shown in Appendix C. Even assuming blackbody radiation, the ideal scenario, the Actual material

temperature only drops between 1.5 and 3C per meter of pipe.

properties and view factors would make the emissivity less than one, significantly reducing the amount of heat transferred through radiation. function of pipe length is shown in Figure 6. Fluid temperature as a

Figure 6. Variation of Fluid Temperature as a Function of Pipe Length.

19

Dropping the temperature into the range of standard alloys would require several hundred meters of pipe. In addition to head loss and physical size concerns, the pipes cost would be prohibitive. Currently, the System Team is tying to minimize the hot pipe length because of the high cost of the high temperature alloy used to make the pipes [8]. Radiative heat transfer does not remove enough heat per meter of pipe to make the system feasible.

3.4

Flat Plate Heat Exchanger Consideration has been given to the flat plate heat exchanger due to its compact

and durable form.

This well developed technology utilizes parallel corrugated or

embossed plates with flow channels to transfer heat from one fluid to another. The spacing between each plate is nominally 4 mm. Typically, the hot and cold fluids enter through inlet ports in each plate, flow through alternating channels, and exit through outlet ports that lead to the next plate. The flow channels are typically designed in a washboard pattern to promote fluid turbulence and increase the overall heat transfer coefficient. corrugated plates in a flat plate exchanger. Figure 7 shows the

20

Figure 7. Corrugated Plates [18].

A frame is constructed out of tightening bolts which hold the plates together and gaskets which seal the perimeter from the atmosphere. While the tightening bolts allow for easy access during maintenance and repair, the gaskets are known to fail under large fluid pressures, causing leakage to the atmosphere [19]. In addition to failing under high pressures, the gasket material is also vulnerable to high temperatures that could cause embrittlement or melting. For some applications, the plates can be brazed together, eliminating the need for gaskets. These types of plate heat exchangers can withstand pressures up to 3 MPa. disassembly for maintenance. However, this prevents

While brazed or welded plate heat exchangers can

withstand the high pressures of our specifications, the upper temperature limit is typically around 300oC [18]. Our application, we will be using two gases with a large pressure differential of 3 MPa. Flat plate heat exchangers are typically made from thin material to reduce the overall size. The large pressure differential could cause the plates to deform, constricting flow through the passages. For these reasons, we have decided against going forward with a flat plate heat exchanger design.

21

3.5

Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger The printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) is a newer technology that is being

used for the PHX. The main advantage to this type of heat exchanger is that it can transfer the same amount of heat in a much smaller volume than other technologies, such as flat plate heat exchangers. However, the printed circuit technology is expensive because of the intricate manufacturing process. A Heatric PCHE is shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Heatric PCHE [20]. The PCHE is too delicate for our application. Unlike the PHX, the SHX will have an open loop of unpressurized ambient air running through it. The 3 MPa pressure differential between the flow channels could cause internal structural problems. Additionally, the air will contain dust, water and other contaminants. The channel width is on the order of a few millimeters [4]. If they become clogged, they will be extremely difficult to clean. Even with a rigorous filtering system to remove air particles, the humidity of the air would still be a problem. A dehumidifier would be needed to remove water from the air. These components increase the cost of the system in terms of

22

equipment, maintenance, and pumping power. Internal stress concerns and the high level of preconditioning the air would have to undergo have led us to rule out the PCHE.

3.6

Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger A promising type of heat exchanger our team has considered is the shell and tube

heat exchanger. This design is the most common method of heat removal in industrial applications.

3.6.1 Shell and Tube Configurations Typical shell and tube heat exchangers are of three different classes: fixed tubesheet, U-tube, and floating head. The fixed tube-sheet type has tubes positioned into tube sheets at either end that are welded to the shell. This eliminates the need for gaskets and minimizes the required maintenance. An example of a fixed tube sheet can be seen in Figure 9. This arrangement is optimal when thermal stresses are minimal and when removal of the tube bundle is not required.

Figure 9. Fixed Tube-Sheet [5].

The U-tube arrangement uses bent tubes that are free to expand and are arranged in a removable tube bundle as shown in Figure 10. This design requires gaskets around 23

the tube sheet and regular maintenance, however, individual tubes cannot be removed. Therefore, when a tube fails it is necessary to plug the tube. This type of heat exchanger is usually designed with extra tubes to compensate for plugging.

Figure 10. U-tube [5].

The floating heat exchanger, seen in Figure 11, consists of tubes supported by a fixed tube sheet on one end that is welded to the shell and a floating tube sheet on the other end that is allowed to move during thermal expansion of the tubes. The tube bundle is removable and mechanical cleaning for pipe diameters larger than half an inch is possible [5].

Figure 11. Floating Head [5].

24

The design of the shell and tube heat exchanger is just as its name implies: a shell containing a coolant fluid is passed across a bank of tubes containing the hot fluid. Different orientations of tubes can be arranged to achieve maximum heat transfer, as well as meet geometrical constraints. When high pressures are involved, the high pressure fluid is passed through the tubes, which are well suited to withstand the stresses. The low pressure fluid typically passes through the shell side to prevent increased stresses on the tube headers and baffles [5]. The most prevalent shell and tube designs are parallel and counter flow with the latter providing a larger amount of heat transfer. This advantage is due to a larger temperature gradient, the driving force behind heat transfer. The amount of tube surface area can be increased by adding fins to the tubes. The fins improve heat transfer from the hot fluid to the coolant. Multiple passes can be achieved by alternating the flow direction through the tubes using sectioned headers. This increases the effectiveness and the correction factor of the heat exchanger, however, it reduces the mass flow rate of the tube side fluid [18]. One way to increase the number of passes without reducing the mass flow rate is to connect multiple heat exchangers in series. In high temperature

applications, this allows the first exchanger to be designed with a high temperature alloy and the subsequent heat exchangers to be made with a cheaper, more common material.

3.6.2 Shell and Tube Vendor Information Our design uses pure nitrogen as the secondary fluid and ambient air as the tertiary coolant. Due to the high temperature and pressure environment, standard

materials cannot be used to construct the heat exchanger. Alloys must be used that can

25

handle the thermal stresses and resist creep at these extreme conditions. Candidate alloys include Incoloy 800H and Inconel 600. As mentioned above, multiple exchangers can be arranged in series which would require only the first exchanger to be made of the high temp alloy, reducing material costs. All the vendors we spoke with were unable to work with the high temperatures and pressures of our application. We did receive a response from Des Champs, which designs the shell and tube exchanger seen in Figure 12 below. Their solution would involve four heat exchangers in series, each being 1.8 m wide, 1.5 m tall and 4 m long. This design would have a tube side pressure drop of 3.4 kPa and would cost between $1.8 to $2 million. However, for this design to work, the inlet gas pressure would have to be reduced through an expansion valve from 3.1 MPa to about 138 kPa. This would require a large compressor after the SHX to increase the pressure to 3.1 MPa [21]. The pressure reduction is not appealing because of the large amount of electricity required to repressurize the nitrogen to 3.1 MPa.

Figure 12. Des Champs Thermo-T Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger [22].

26

In order to use the ambient air as a tertiary fluid that passes through the shell side, it will be necessary to include a blower to overcome the pressure drop and achieve the desired flow rate. A filtering system will also be necessary to remove dust particles from the air flow. There are no prohibitive obstacles to using the shell and tube heat exchanger in the SHX design. A full design analysis is included in Section 4.1.

3.7

Air Cooled Heat Exchanger The air cooled heat exchanger (ACHE) is currently the most promising

technology for meeting our requirements. This section will cover background about the ACHE and vendor information.

3.7.1 ACHE Design and Operation The ACHE is constructed differently than the shell and tube heat exchanger. The major difference is that, for the ACHE, the shell flow is replaced by a fan-driven air duct [23]. Since the ACHE is specifically designed to use air as its coolant fluid, it performs well under the given requirements and constraints. A schematic of the ACHE is shown below in Figure 13.

27

Figure 13. ACHE Operation [24].

The ACHE is composed of a bundle of finned tubes that are connected to rectangular box headers at both ends. The front headers are welded boxes that divide the flow between the pipe and the tube bundle. The rear headers redirect the flow from one tube pass to another. The heat transfer is driven by convection between the tube bundle and ambient air. This process is enhanced by fans which increase the mass flow rate of the air [23]. The fans can be placed above or below the tube bundle. These systems are called induced draft and forced draft, respectively. The forced and induced draft configurations are shown in Figures 14 and 15.

28

Figure 14. Forced Draft ACHE [24].

Figure 15. Induced Draft ACHE [24].

The forced draft setup is the best for our operating conditions. This is because forced draft fans are placed below the pipes, not in the hot stream of exhaust air. If the fans are placed in the hot stream of air, thermal stresses can be a problem. In addition, forced draft systems are easier to manufacture and maintain [23]. The main advantage of the induced draft system is that it prevents the possibility of warm air recirculation. Warm air recirculation occurs when the fans draw in hot air that has been exhausted [24].

29

3.7.2 ACHE Vendor Information Ecodyne MRM has provided our team with a basic quote and schematic for a twounit ACHE that would be coupled with a recuperator. The use of a recuperator is discussed in Section 3.8. Based on the specifications and operating parameters we provided, Ecodyne MRM quoted a system price of $506,800. The ACHE is designed to cool a 43 kg/sec flow of the secondary coolant fluid from 450C to 50C by rejecting 22 MWt. The unit contains two coolers, with two 30 kW fans per cooler [25]. Each cooler utilizes 411 tubes made from 304 SS. The capital required for this ACHE is well within reason, but it must be noted that a recuperator will be required to use this system. If this option is pursued, a high temperature recuperator with subsequent piping and valves will be required, dramatically increasing the cost of this option. Ecodyne MRM and other vendors were unwilling to provide a product quote that would satisfy the high temperature requirements for a heat exchanger with an inlet of 850oC. A design for a high temperature heat exchanger would be different from the standard products provided by vendors. Normally, fins are embedded on the tubes to aid in the heat transfer. The temperatures for our application are too high to permit the use of standard materials used to construct the fins, so bare tubes of a high temperature alloy must be used [25].

3.8

Recuperator A recuperator is essentially a heat exchanger placed in a system to transfer heat

from a hot flow to a cold flow in a closed loop. Typically, recuperators are used in power

30

generation plants to transfer heat from turbine exhaust to the fluid entering the compressor. The recuperator helps increase the fluids temperature as it enters the

compressor and reduces waste heat. For the design of the SHX, we considered placing a recuperator before the heat exchanger in order to drop the temperature of the nitrogen at the inlet of the SHX. This drop in temperature allows the heat exchanger to be constructed of common materials instead of costly high temperature alloys. This also allows the circulator to be located on the cold side, reducing its material costs. In addition, using a recuperator decreases the amount of high temperature piping necessary. A schematic of the setup can be seen in Figure 16.

450 C 850 C
PHX SHX

450 C Recuperator

50 C

air

Figure 16. Schematic with Recuperator.

While the recuperator allows the SHX to be constructed from lower temperature alloys, the recuperator itself must be able to withstand the 850C inlet temperature. This is done by constructing the recuperator out of a high temperature alloy, which essentially transfers the bulk of the cost and technical difficulty from the SHX to the recuperator. In addition, most recuperators are of the shell and tube design and pass the high pressure

31

fluid through the tubes and the low pressure fluid through the shell. The circular design of the tubes is able to withstand the high pressures without generating high stresses. However, for our application, the same high pressure fluid is passing through both sides of the exchanger. This makes the design of the shell more complicated since the effects of high pressure effects on baffles, tube sheets, sealing strips and headers must be considered. A Heatric heat exchanger would be well suited for this application. This design would be able to handle the high temperatures and high pressures of the nitrogen gas. While a Heatric exchanger would be the best model for the recuperator, we have determined that the design of the secondary heat removal system would be better without a recuperator. The recuperator adds to the complexity of the system increasing the amount of maintenance required. Additionally, the pressure drop on the hot gas side and the operating cost of the circulator to overcome this pressure drop would increase. Also, the price Heatric quoted for the PHX was $7 million. The recuperator and PHX would be transferring similar amounts of heat, so the prices are likely to be similar. $7 million is more than the amount estimated for the entire SHX system in our final recommended design.

32

PROJECT SOLUTION

We were unable to find a vendor who could provide our team with a high temperature and pressure heat exchanger. Therefore, designs of the two most promising heat exchangers, the shell and tube and air cooled, were created using programs written in Matlab.

4.1

Shell and Tube Design The inlet temperatures, heat rate and mass flow rates are parameters that are

initially known. The exit temperatures can be found from the heat rate equation (Eq. 4.1).
& =m & " C P " (Th ! Tc ) Q

(4.1)

Once the exit temperatures are known the log mean temperature difference (Eq. 4.2) can be found.

"Tlm =

(Thi # Tco) # (Tho # Tci) (Thi # Tco) ln (Tho # Tci)

(4.2)

The correction factor is found by calculating the thermal effectiveness (Eq. 4.3) and the heat capacity ratio ! (Eq. 4.4) and referring to a correction factor chart [5].
P= Thi ! Tho Tci ! Thi Thi ! Tho Tco ! Tci

(4.3)

R=

(4.4)

33

In the program, the overall heat transfer coefficient is initially set at 110 W/m-K, a typical value for heat exchangers. The required surface area of the heat exchanger can then be found from equation 4.5.
A= & Q UF!Tlm

(4.5)

Once the initial area of the heat exchanger has been determined, the initial geometry of the exchanger can be set. The outer diameter and thickness of the tubes was set to standard TEMA sizes (19 mm and 3.01mm) and the length and number of tubes were set to achieve the desired surface area for heat transfer [5]. The number of tubes affects the velocity of the fluid flowing through the pipes. An increase in the number of tubes reduces the velocity, which decreases the overall heat transfer coefficient. An increase in the pipe length increases the pressure drop across the tubes. Therefore, there is a tradeoff between achieving the highest overall heat transfer coefficient and minimizing the pressure drop. Once the optimum number and length of tubes is determined, the overall heat transfer coefficient to be found (Eq. 4.6).
'' 1 % U =% %% h && o $ '1 " "+% % # & hi $ ' r1 $ ' r2 " %r " + % k " ( ln% & 1 # & # $$ " " "" ##
!1

(4.6)

This value is a function of the internal and external convection coefficients, the thermal conductivity of the tube wall and the internal and external fouling coefficients. The hot nitrogen gas is a relatively clean fluid in a closed loop and therefore internal fouling should be negligible [5]. The external fouling is also neglected because the dusty air will be filtered before passing over the tube bundle. After multiple iterations, we reached a design that satisfied our requirements. Our shell and tube design has the parameters listed in Table 5. 34

Table 5. Shell and Tube Properties.

Fluid Properties Tube Side Inlet temp ( C) Outlet temp ( C) Mass flow (kg/sec) Pressure (kPa) Pressure drop (kPa)
o o

Exchanger Geometry per Module Shell Side 50 352 80 101.5 22 Number of tubes Tube outer diameter (mm) Tube inner diameter(mm) Tube length (m) Baffle window (%) Baffle spacing (m) 830 19.05 12.7 3.048 15 0.3048

850 453 55 3100 55

The heat exchanger is a four module design that has a single shell pass and a double tube pass. The gas is divided into 415 tubes per pass, each tube having an outer diameter of 19.05 mm and a wall thickness of 3.18 mm. Therefore, each module has a total of 830 tubes that are slightly over 3 m in length. The shell that houses the tube bundle has a diameter of 1.5 m. The hot gas inlet leads to a front header that distributes the flow through the pipes. The flow then passes through the top half of the tube bundle and into the rear header, which channels the flow into the lower half of the tube bundle. The gas path is represented by the arrow in Figure 17. The gas then flows into the lower half of the front header, and into the inlet of the next module. The air enters the shell and flows across the tubes. The air path is represented by the arrow in Figure 18. Alternating baffles increase the turbulence of the air and creates cross flow and counter flow patterns.

35

Figure 17. Nitrogen Gas Path through Shell and Tube HX.

Figure 18: Air Path through Shell and Tube HX.

For easy maintenance, a floating head assembly is recommended. This means that the front header would be rigid against the shell while the rear header is free to move to accommodate the thermal expansion of the tube bundle. The TEMA designation for 36

this exchanger is AEP. AEP indicates the gas inlet header is channel type (TEMA: A) with removable cover for easy tube access. The shell is a one pass shell (TEMA: E) and the rear head is an outside packed floating header (TEMA: P) that will accommodate expansion of the tube bundle [5]. The team design of the shell and tube heat exchanger has an overall heat transfer coefficient of 102 W/m-K. Typical values for our application are between 50 and 200 W/m-K. A larger heat transfer coefficient is preferred because less area would be

required. However, our exchanger had a pressure drop on the tube side of 55 kPa which approaches the self imposed upper limit in the specification sheet. This overall heat transfer coefficient is strongly linked to the baffle window, the amount of area not blocked by the baffle. The relationship can be seen in Figure 19.

Figure 19. Baffle Window Effect on Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient.

37

The shell and tube design has a baffle window of 15%, which is the lower limit suggested by TEMA. Smaller windows reduce the area available for shell side flow and result in large increases in shell side pressure drop [5]. A baffle window of 50% is the practical upper limit. There is a limit because the baffles have holes through which the tubes pass. The baffles act as structural supports. For baffle clearances greater than 50%, the tubes in the middle of the tube bundle are unsupported. This leads to sagging of the tubes. The pressure drop through the tubes consists of three separate components: the pressure loss due to the headers, the pipes, and elevation change (4.7).

!PT = !PH + !PP + !PE

(4.7)

The pressure drop due to the elevation change is negligible compared to the other two terms, and was therefore neglected. The pressure drop in the pipes is a function of the friction factor, tube length, tube inner diameter, fluid velocity through the tubes, number of tube passes, and the expansion and contraction loss coefficients. The friction factor is a function of Reynolds number and relative roughness of the pipe and can be found using the Moody Chart [27]. The pressure drop is due to the sudden contraction and expansion of the flow channel and is a function of the mass velocity, density of fluid, number of passes, the contraction and expansion loss coefficients and acceleration due to gravity [5]. The contraction and expansion coefficients come from charts that relate the ratio of the cross-sectional areas of the tube and the header [27]. The following pressure drop equation accounts for all these factors:

(PT =

2 GT 2 g) t

' 1.5 fLt $ + + K c + K t + 4" ! N P % di %Np " & #

(4.8)

38

For the shell side, the pressure drop is the sum of the pressure drop across the tube bundle, the drop in the baffle windows, and the drop in the entrance and exit regions (4.9).

"PS = [( N B # 1)("Pb ,i ! RB ) + N B ! "PW ] ! R1 + 2("Pb ,i )(1 +

N tcw ) ! Rb ! Rs N tcc

(4.9)

Equation 4.9 is a function of the number of baffles, the correction factors for the baffle, shell and baffle leakage, number of tubes in the baffle window and in the internal cross flow section. Using these equations, it was determined that the pressure drop was 55 kPa through the tubes and 22 kPa through the shell. The power required to overcome the 55 kPa pressure drop is found using Equation 4.10 and is calculated to be 270 kW.

& & =m W !P "

(4.10)

The same calculation is performed on the shell side with a pressure drop of 22 kPa. The power requirement was determined to be 1.6 MW to overcome the pressure drop. This is a large value compared to the tube power requirement due to the large mass flow rate and low density of air at ambient temperature. If this system runs for eight hours a day and the cost of electricity is $.08/kWh, the shell and tube design would cost $1197 per day to operate. This estimate assumes the heat exchanger is dissipating the entire 25 MWt and that the fans are 100% efficient.

4.2

ACHE design An air cooled heat exchanger was designed that could satisfy the high

temperatures and pressures of our application. The design process is similar to the design

39

of the way the shell and tube exchanger was designed. An initial overall heat transfer coefficient must be assumed to solve for an initial area. The geometrical features of the exchanger are then set and a new overall heat transfer coefficient is calculated. This iterative process follows the same methodology as the shell and tube, except that instead of shell side considerations, it was necessary to design for the air flow over the tubes. This facet involved designing the tube bundle geometry and the air ducts that direct flow over the tube bundle. For our design, we chose to make our exchanger a two bay unit similar to the Ecodyne design. A connecting section of pipe guides the flow from the outlet of one bay into the inlet of the second bay. This two bay design is meant to keep the exchanger from being too long in one direction, which would lead to tube manufacturing problems. This heat exchanger will need to drop the gas temperature by 400oC, the same temperature difference as the original Ecodyne design but at a higher gas inlet temperature (850oC instead of 450oC). Because the heat rate equation is dependant on the temperature difference and not the actual temperatures, it was decided to make our design similar to the Ecodyne design. Our design does include a few modifications to accommodate the higher temperature. First, the tubes would have to be made out of a high temperature alloy instead of the stainless steel used by Ecodyne. Also, the Ecodyne tubes had embedded aluminum fins which would not be suitable for the high temperature design. Therefore, bare tubes are used, which require an increase in the tube length or number to account for the extra heat transfer surface area. The computer model used to create this design is discussed further in Section 5.

40

The team-designed ACHE has the properties shown in Table 6. This design uses 410 Inconel tubes per bay, for a total of 820 tubes. The heat exchanger will reduce the hot gas temperature from 850oC to 437oC and will raise the temperature of the air passing over the tubes from 50oC to 352oC. This is done with four fans that will be blowing air over the tube bundle at a speed of about 20 m/s.

Table 6. ACHE Properties.

Fluid Properties Tube Side o Inlet temp ( C) 850 Outlet temp ( C) Mass flow (kg/sec) Pressure (kPa)
o

Exchanger Geometry per Bay Air Side 50 352 80 101.5 Number of tubes Tube outer diameter (mm) Tube inner diameter(mm) Tube length (m) 410 19.05 12.7 12.5

437 55 3100

The pressure drop through the tubes was calculated using the same method as with the shell and tube. The air side pressure drop is a function of mass velocity of the air, the density of the air at the inlet and outlet, the tube layout, friction factor, and free flow area (Eq. 4.11). The calculated pressure drop through the tubes is 47 kPa and 2.13 kPa over the tube bundle.

*i G2 & ,V * i # 2 )P = ' $(1 + + )( ( 1) + f ' ! 2 ' *i % *o + t A fr * m ! $ "

(4.11)

The power required to overcome the pressure drop is 226 kW in the tube bundle and 228 kW for the air flowing over the tube bundle. If this system runs for 8 hours a day and the cost of electricity is $.08/kWh, the ACHE design would cost $291 per day to operate. This is assuming the exchanger is dissipating the entire 25 MWt and that the

41

fans are 100% efficient. This design yields an overall heat transfer coefficient of 126 W/m-k.

4.3

Design Comparison A comparison of the two models shows that the ACHE outperforms the shell and

tube design for each metric considered. Table 7 compares properties of the two designs.

Table 7: Heat Exchanger Model Comparison.

Metrics Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient (W/m-K) Fluid Pressure Drop (kPa) Air Pressure Drop (kPa) Operating Cost ($/day) Maintenance Shell and Tube 102 55 22 1,197 Air Cooled HX 126 47 2.13 291 +

The overall heat transfer coefficient for the ACHE is 20% higher than the shell and tube design. This relates to the ability of the heat exchanger to remove heat from the hot fluid. The ACHE has lower pressure drops through both the fluid and air sides. The hot fluid flowing through the shell and tube goes through 25 m of pipe and the flow is redirected due to the headers. The cold side flows through the shell and changes

directions multiple times due to the baffles. This increases the number of times the same air passes over the tube bundles, increasing the head loss. The hot flow in the ACHE has 25 m of pipe and one channel to redirect its flow. The cold air passes only once through the tube bundle. The heat transfer coefficient is approximately 20% higher for the ACHE than for the shell and tube heat exchanger. This increase in the overall heat transfer coefficient is 42

due to the larger air side convection coefficient for the ACHE: 133 W/m-K for the ACHE compared to 105 W/m-K for the shell and tube. The larger heat transfer coefficient can be attributed to fresh air constantly being blown over the tube bundle. In contrast, the shell and tube passes the same air through each module. The pressure drop directly relates to the operating cost by the amount of power required to overcome this drop (Eq. 4.10). Because the shell and tube has a higher pressure drop, the operating costs are also higher. The ACHE is easier to maintain because only the top cover needs to be removed to access the tube bundle. This allows a pressure washer to be used to clean the tube bundles. Cleaning the shell and tube setup would require opening the shell for all four modules. The tube bundles would then have to be removed before cleaning. In addition, the shell interior and the baffles would also have to be cleaned. The ACHE outperformed the shell and tube for each metric and is therefore the preferred design.

4.4

Economic Analysis The cost of the high temperature ACHE is estimated to be between $2.1 and $6.4

million. This amount was calculated by using the Ecodyne quote of $506,800 and multiplying by the cost ratio between stainless steel and Inconel 600 pipe [25]. The two quotes we received for Inconel pipe were $29 and $88 per foot. Stainless steel (304SS) was quoted at $7 per foot by both vendors [8, 28]. The two Inconel quotes give cost ratios of 4.1 and 12.6, respectively. The two ratios are then multiplied with the base cost of $506,800 to get a cost range of $2.1 and $6.4 million.

43

The engineering and construction schedule were also based on the Ecodyne quote. Ecodyne estimated four to eight weeks for engineering design [25]. temperature material requirement makes the design nonstandard. The high

Therefore, we

increased the length of engineering time to eight to twelve weeks. The construction schedule also needed to be lengthened from the eighteen to twenty weeks quoted in the Ecodyne response. One of the Inconel pipe manufacturers we contacted quoted fifteen weeks for fabrication of the pipes [28]. The extra time for fabrication of Inconel parts led us to increase the construction schedule to 32 to 40 weeks.

44

COMPUTER MODELS

Our team has developed two computer models for the SHX system. First, a mathematical model of the SHX has been created in Simulink. This model has been incorporated into the full system Simulink model created by the System Team. The other model created is a basic scale representation of the SHX in Solidworks. The model is being used for plant layout purposes by the System Team.

5.1

Heat Exchanger Simulation Simulink is a powerful, object oriented programming tool similar to Labview that

can run inherent and user-defined Matlab codes. A Simulink model was created that combines the effects of each groups system components and allows a user to quickly view the behavior of the overall system in response to changing operating parameters. From the SHXs standpoint, it is necessary to accept the hot gas inlet temperature and pressure as well as mass flow rate and return the outlet temperature, pressure and mass flow rate. This was done using an embedded Matlab function and can be seen below in Figure 20.

45

Figure 20. Secondary Heat Exchanger Simulink Model.

The function sets the outlet mass flow rate equal to the inlet mass flow rate because there will be no leakage. The outlet temperature (T2) is calculated from the Equation 5.1.
& =m & gas " C p " ( Q Thot ,in ! T2 )

(5.1)

Heat load (Q) is a constant 25 MW and specific heat (cp) is calculated from the inlet gas temperature using a property calculator created by the Fluids Team. This allows T2 to be solved and the average temperature to be calculated. This average temperature is used to calculate a new specific heat so that a new outlet temperature can be calculated. This process is repeated until T2 converges on the actual outlet temperature. The pressure drop is calculated from the geometry of the heat exchanger. Head loss in the pipes and minor losses in the bends and headers are calculated and then subtracted from the inlet gas pressure. The outputs of the Secondary_HX function are fed into another embedded Matlab function for the fluid circulator which bumps up the gas pressure and increases the temperature. The overall system model includes functions for the PHX and SHX, piping and valves, labs, and circulators. Each subsystem function calculates the effects the

46

subsystem would have on the secondary fluid and passes the new values on to the next component. When combined, the functions create a powerful system representation that allows the user to vary operating parameters and observe the effects on the fluid and overall system. To verify the results of the SHX Simulink model, a simulation was run which varies the model inputs so that a comparison of the output trends can be performed. These results can be seen in Appendix E.

5.2

Matlab Codes In addition to creating the SHX design in Matlab, we also had several supporting

codes that were important in completing the design. These codes include a mass flow analysis and a required area calculator. The Matlab code can be seen in Appendix E.

5.2.1 Mass Flow Analysis The Matlab script mass_flow_analysis.m was created to observe the dependence of the outlet temperature of the fluid to the mass flow rate. The heat load and inlet temperature of the fluid is specified as 25 MWt and 850oC and 52oC for the gas and air side respectively. The outlet temperatures are solved for the range of mass flow rates. A graph of this relation and can be seen in Figure 21.

47

) s u i c l e C ( e r u t a r e p m e t t e l t u o s a g mass flow analysis of hot gas 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 -100 -200 -300 -400 20 30 40 50 60 mass flow rate of gas (kg/sec) 70 80

) s u i c l e C ( e r u 1100 t a 1000 r e p 900 m e 800 t t e l t u o r i a 700 600 500 400 300 200 20 40 60 80 mass flow rate of air (kg/sec) 100 120 mass flow analysis of air coolant

Figure 21. Dependence of Outlet Temperature on Mass Flow Rate.

The PHX Team has determined that they need the SHX to drop the temperature of the gas to a constant 450oC. This corresponds to a gas mass flow rate of 55 kg/sec. This flow rate is believed to be high enough to run the turbine in the Brayton cycle lab [29]. For the air side, it is desirable to reduce the outlet temperature of the exhausted air as much as possible. A mass flow rate of 80 kg/sec was chosen which corresponds to an exhaust temperature of 352oC. Several vendors were contacted and it was determined that this flow rate, while relatively high, is possible at the expense of increased power consumption in the fans.

5.2.2 Gas Calculator The Fluids Team created a Matlab script that calculated relevant thermodynamic properties of air. It is necessary to input a temperature and pressure for the fluid and to specify whether the fluid is air or nitrogen. The script then outputs the specific heat, viscosity, density, and thermal conductivity. development of the heat exchanger models. This code was used throughout the

48

5.3

Solid Modeling A Solidworks model of the selected design is one of the deliverables of this

project. The model will be incorporated into the System Teams layout of the entire plant. The plant model will be useful in understanding what the finished plant will look like. It can also be used as a marketing tool while additional funds are being raised for the project. As stated earlier, the only specific design information we received came from Ecodyne MRM. Figure 22 shows the engineering drawing received from Ecodyne.

Figure 22. Ecodyne Air Cooled Heat Exchanger [30]. The dimensional information provided by this drawing is limited to two of the three outer dimensions. However, by using the given dimensions to create a scale for the drawing, other pertinent dimensions were measured. From these measurements a representative Solidworks model was constructed. This model is shown in Figure 23 and specified dimensions are in meters.

49

Figure 23. Solidworks Model of Ecodyne Design.

Since we determined that a shell and tube system could be used as a solution, we decided to make a solid model of that system as well. This model is based on the design discussed in Section 4.1. dimensions are in meters. The solid model is shown in Figure 24 and the specified

50

Figure 24. Shell and Tube Solidworks Model.

51

RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

The major problem our team has faced has not been the design of the heat exchanger, but with the materials that are required to withstand the extreme operating environment. The air cooled heat exchanger system that our team is recommending is standard in industrial practices, but the temperatures and pressures are not. Our team has had difficulty contacting vendors willing to provide heat exchangers that meet our specifications. Vendors have expressed difficulty in designing heat

exchangers to meet both high temperatures and pressures, but have offered quotes for systems that meet one of those two requirements. By separating the design process from the manufacturing process, there is a greater chance of finding companies capable of working on this project. It is our teams recommendation that an engineering firm be contracted to perform a complete design of an air cooled heat exchanger. The specifications we have provided will allow an engineering company to design to the requirements and constraints of this application. The design that is produced from the engineering company can then be sent to a manufacturing facility for construction. If the manufacturer is presented with a design that has been verified as safe and effective, they need only be concerned with how to build it.

6.1

Future Design Recommendations The following sub-sections cover important design issues that should be

developed further. These issues include a control system to ensure the gas exit

52

temperature from the SHX is 450oC, dual materials to lower the cost of the exchanger, environmental regulations concerning the hot exhaust temperature, and the possibility of fouling and clogging from using unfiltered air as a coolant.

6.1.1 Gas Exit Temperature Control System The design of the PHX requires a fixed fluid inlet temperature to achieve its desired outlet temperature. Consequently, a control system will be needed to be

implemented to keep the outlet temperature of the SHX at a constant temperature of 450C. A system to control the outlet temperature for an ACHE can be implemented simply. When the inlet temperature of the SHX is less than the maximum of 850C, the speed of the fans can be reduced to achieve the desired outlet temperature. Reducing the fan speed lowers the mass flow rate of the air, which in turn lowers the total amount of heat transferred. Temperature sensors would need to be placed in the main fluid line after the lab flows have joined back together. This system can be automated so that fan speed is automatically controlled by the inlet temperature. Another part of the control system would cover the case when the labs are using all or nearly all of the heat produced by the reactor. If the fluid temperature exiting the labs was near 450C, the SHX would remove too much heat. This would be the case even if the fans were turned off because of natural convection through the fan ducts. There are two solutions to this problem. The first solution would be to add a pipe for the fluid to flow through which would bypass the SHX. A valve to direct the flow into the bypass pipe would be activated when the lab outlet temperature dropped below a

53

set value. The other method to minimize the heat loss in the SHX would be to put duct covers on top of the AHCE air ducts. The lids would eliminate natural convection through the ducts. With the covers in place, the tube bundle would be fairly well insulated. Further analysis needs to be conducted to determine which system would be better suited for the HT3R. Once a control system is chosen, guidelines should be created for the labs to place lower limit on their fluid outlet temperature. The change in temperature resulting from the bypass system would be added to 450C. This higher temperature would be the minimum allowable lab outlet temperature. The temperature sensors in the lab outlet pipe would be able to signal lab operators when they are approaching this limit. It is important to point out that controlling the PHX inlet temperature is necessary in maintaining ideal operating conditions for the labs, not in preventing a system breakdown. If the PHX inlet temperature was allowed to drop below 450C, the result would be a PHX outlet temperature of less than 850C. The labs would not receive the hottest possible fluid. If this became a problem, the labs would need to lower the power demands on the fluid loop to allow it to heat back up to the maximum temperature.

6.1.2 Dual Material ACHE The cost of Inconel 600 for the tube bundles is much more expensive than a regular alloy used for low temperature operation. The price of Inconel 600 ranges from $29/ft to $88/ft based on the piping vendors we contacted [8, 28]. On the contrary, the stainless steel (304SS) used in the low temperature designs costs $7/ft [28]. To reduce the cost, the tubing could be divided into two stages composed of different alloys, one for

54

high temperatures and one for low temperatures. The high temperature section would still be constructed of Inconel, but the low temperature section could be made out of a standard alloy, such as stainless steel. The temperature of the nitrogen gas would need to be lowered to 750C to 800C, according to a conversation with a vendor from Heatric [26]. Using dual materials has the potential to dramatically reduce the overall cost of the ACHE, while retaining its heat transfer capability. While this design is worth further consideration, it must be noted that there are safety concerns associated with using two different alloys. If the high temperature

section of tubes failed to reduce the temperature to 750C, the stainless steel tubes would experience temperatures above their operational range. The stainless steel tubes could be damaged. We believe that this concern can be adequately addressed, because the entire plant is designed on the assumption that the SHX will be able to remove its required heat load. The reactor would need to be shut down immediately if the SHX stopped operating for some reason.

6.1.3 Air Exhaust Temperature The high temperature of the exhaust air from the SHX is a concern because of its potential impact on the environment. The team design of both the shell and tube and air cooled heat exchanger produces an air outlet temperature of about 352C. We were not able to find relevant thermal exhaust regulations to use in our design. We searched the websites of the NRC and the EPA. The NRC was contacted by phone and by email as well, without a response. All the literature we were able to find concerned thermal pollution in bodies of water.

55

If the design outlet temperature proves to be too hot, there are two methods by which the temperature can be lowered. The first way to lower the temperature is to increase the mass flow rate of the air as it flows over the tube bundle. However, this would increase the power requirement of the fans. The other option is to mix the exhaust air with additional ambient air. This could be accomplished by using a cooling stack.

6.1.4 Air Filtration Dust particles present in the ambient air pose a problem with the shell and tube heat exchangers. The heat exchanger shell contains many tubes. As ambient air flows through the shell, dust and debris may deposit within the baffles and spacing between tubes. As debris builds up, fouling resistance increases, reducing the amount of heat transfer from the nitrogen to the air. Cleaning the outside of the tubes requires removing the headers from the end of the shell. The shell can then be separated to expose the tube bundle. From here, individual tubes can be pulled out for cleaning [5]. While this appears to be a relatively straight forward process, performing this task routinely for four shell and tube units would be time consuming. If the shell and tube design were to be pursued, an air filtration system would be implemented. Dust and debris would be removed from the ambient air by a series of filters. After filtration, clean air would enter the shell to remove the heat from the nitrogen.

56

6.2

Conclusions To complete this project, our team first focused on choosing the most suitable

heat exchanger technology available. Traditional cooling towers, heat pipes, radiative heat transfer, flat plate heat exchangers, and printed circuit technologies were analyzed and discarded as viable solutions to the heat rejection problem. The main problems were the high temperatures and high pressures the heat exchanger must withstand. The shell and tube and air cooled heat exchange systems are the two technologies that can meet our application requirements. Due to the extremely high temperatures and pressures, standard heat exchanger designs will not suffice. Not only that, but the operating conditions are extreme enough to make all the vendors we spoke with reluctant to even provide a quote for the design and cost of the heat exchanger. Without a vendor willing to specify a workable design, we elected to create analytical models of the two candidate technologies: the shell and tube and air cooled heat exchangers. Both models incorporated design equations from relevant engineering texts and were implemented to calculate design parameters such as tube diameter, number of tubes, and tube length. These programs were then optimized to produce the best configuration possible for each technology. The results show that the design of the ACHE outperformed the shell and tube for each metric compared. Our team recommends the air cooled heat exchanger as the secondary heat exchanger for the HT3R reactor. A rigorous design will need to be completed by an engineering firm in the next stage of design which will be provided to heat exchanger manufacturers for production.

57

Throughout the design process, it was critical to communicate effectively with the three other NETL teams. Several of the operating parameters of the system, such as secondary mass flow rate, had to be agreed upon by all the teams. Forming a consensus and keeping all of the teams informed of design changes was a constant challenge. As the design process moves forward, the design of the SHX will have to be adjusted in tandem with the rest of the systems components.

58

REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. "The Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory." 5 June 2006 <http://www.me.utexas.edu/~netl/>. Biegalski, Steven. Presentation. 7 June 2006. Lamarsh, John R., and Anthony J. Baratta. Introduction to Nuclear Engineering. 3rd ed. Prentice Hall, 2001. HT3R: High Temperature Teaching & Test Reactor. The University of Texas. Austin: The University of Texas of the Permian Basin, 2006. Kuppan, T. Heat Exchanger Design Handbook. 1st ed. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc, 2000. Moriarty, M. P., Methods and Apparatuses for Removing Thermal Energy From a Nuclear Reactor, U.S. Patent 6,888,910, April 25, 1998. Geary, D.F., Flamm, K.K., Morrison F.T., Segmental Baffle High Performance Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger, U.S. Patent 4,699,211, Oct. 13, 1987. Tiger Metals. 304SS and Alloy 600 Tubing E-mail to Scott Waters. 31 July 2006. Korsmo, E.S., Boedecker, E.R., Air to Air Heat Exchanger, U.S. Patent 4,483,392, Nov. 20, 1984. Harris, Dave. The Willmington Web Site. 31 Oct. 2005. 5 June 2006 <http://www.willington-derbys.org.uk/Photos/PS/PowerStationAerial02_sm.jpg>. Cooling Tower Manual. Houston: Cooling Tower Institute, 1977. "PVC Fills." C.T.P Manufacturing, Inc. 2002. 13 July 2006 <http://www.ctptowerparts.com/fills.html>. "Legionnaires' Disease Associated with Cooling Towers -- Massachusetts, Michigan, and Rhode Island, 1993." MMWR Weekly (1994). 13 July 2006. Bhumralkar, Chandrakant M., and Jill Williams. Atmospheric Effects of Waste Heat Discharges. New York: Marcel Deckker, 1982. What is a Heat Pipe Che Plus <http://www.cheresources.com/htpipes.shtml>. Heat Pipe. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heatpipe>.

59

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

Thermal Management. Fujikura Europe LTD. <http://www.fujikura.co.uk/images/electronics_thermal_heat_pipe3.jpg>. Shah, Ramesh K., and Dusan P. Sekulic. Fundamentals of Heat Exchanger Design. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2003. Fraas, Arthur. Heat Exchanger Design. 2nd ed. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1989. "PCHE Features & Capabilities." Heatric. 2005. 7 July 2006 <http://www.heatric.com/features_capabilities.html>. Chumley, James. Des Champs. Telephone interview. 19 June 2006. Industrial Heat Exchangers. Natural Bridge Station: Des Champs Laboratories Incorporated, 2001. Stone, Jim. "Air-Cooled Heat Exchangers." Stone Process Equipment. 10 July 2006 <http://www.stoneprocess.com/acooler.htm>. "Overview." GEA Rainey. 07 July 2006 <http://www.gearainey.com/ACHE/Overview.aspx>. Ecodyne MRM Correspondence, Wes Crytzer. Bowdery, Tony. Heatric Ltd. Telephone interview. 20 July 2006. Fox, Robert W., Alan T. McDonald, and Philip J. Pritchard. Introduction to Fluid Mechanics. 6th ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2004. Mills, Kenneth, All Metals and Forge Co. Telephone interview. 31 July 2006. "GE10 Gas Turbine." GE Oil and Gas. 2006. 16 July 2006 <http://gepower.com/businesses/ge_oilandgas/en/prod_serv/prod/gas_turbine/en/g e10.htm>. C, R W. Forced Draft Air Cooled Heat Exchanger. Ecodyne MRM. Houston: Ecodyne MRM, 2006. 4 July 2006. Mechanical Design of Heat Exchangers. Vol. 4. Newport: Hemisphere. Podhorsky, M, and H Krips. Heat Exchangers: a Practical Approach to Mechanical Sonstruction, Design, and Calculations. Redding: Begell House.

30.

31. 32.

60

33. 34. 35.

Burger, R. Cooling Tower Technology and Maintenance, Upgrading and Rebuilding. 3rd ed. PTR Prentice Hall, 1995. Hill, G. B., E J. Pring, and Peter D. Osborne. Cooling Towers: Principles and Practice. 2nd ed. Carter Thermal Engineering, 1970. Incropera, Frank P., and David P. Dewitt. Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer. 5th ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

61

62

Appendix A
Gantt Chart

A-1

content

A-1

Appendix B
Radiative Heat Transfer Analysis

B-1

EQ1 Qdot= epsilon*sigma*A*(Th^4 - Tamb^4) epsilon = sigma = Tamb = Th,o = cp = pipe diameter = Fin Area/meter = pipe SA per meter = mdot, secondary flow 1 5.67E-08 330 1123 1126

EQ2 Qdot = mdot*cp*deltaT

W/(m^2*K) K

J/(kg*K)

0.3048 0.2 1.157557441

m m^2 m^2

52

kg/s

*Sample data shown below Linear Meter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 EQ1 Qdot,part (kW) 103608.2102 102951.8373 102302.6934 101660.6653 101025.6421 100397.5149 99776.17709 99161.52431 98553.45414 97951.86626 97356.66231 96767.74585 96185.02235 95608.3991 95037.78522 94473.09154 93914.23063 93361.11674 92813.66572 92271.79506 EQ2 Qdot,tot 103608.2102 206560.0475 308862.7409 410523.4062 511549.0483 611946.5632 711722.7403 810884.2646 909437.7188 1007389.585 1104746.247 1201513.993 1297699.016 1393307.415 1488345.2 1582818.291 1676732.522 1770093.639 1862907.304 1955179.1 delta T 1.7695076 1.7582975 1.7472109 1.7362458 1.7254004 1.7146727 1.704061 1.6935634 1.6831783 1.6729039 1.6627385 1.6526805 1.6427282 1.6328802 1.6231347 1.6134904 1.6039457 1.5944992 1.5851494 1.5758948 Thot,new (K) 1121.230492 1119.472195 1117.724984 1115.988738 1114.263338 1112.548665 1110.844604 1109.151041 1107.467862 1105.794959 1104.13222 1102.47954 1100.836811 1099.203931 1097.580797 1095.967306 1094.36336 1092.768861 1091.183712 1089.607817 Thot,new [C] 848.2304924 846.4721948 844.7249839 842.9887381 841.2633377 839.5486651 837.8446041 836.1510407 834.4678624 832.7949586 831.1322201 829.4795397 827.8368115 826.2039313 824.5807966 822.9673061 821.3633604 819.7688612 818.1837118 816.607817

Area (m^2) 1.157557441 2.315114882 3.472672322 4.630229763 5.787787204 6.945344645 8.102902086 9.260459527 10.41801697 11.57557441 12.73313185 13.89068929 15.04824673 16.20580417 17.36336161 18.52091905 19.67847649 20.83603393 21.99359138 23.15114882

B-2

Figure B.1. Heat Transferred Versus Pipe Length.

Figure B.2. Fluid Temperature Versus Pipe Length.

B-3

B-4

Appendix C
Vendor Information

B-4

Table C.1. Vendor List

C-2

Appendix D
Simulink Model

D-1

D.1

Simulink Model Validation A model of our heat exchanger was created in Simulink so that it could be

implemented into an overall system model.

The model created requires that the

temperature, pressure and mass flow rate of the hot gas be entered and will output the exit temperature and pressure of the hot gas. The air flow properties are set as constants within the model. To verify our model, the mass flow rate of the hot gas was varied to observe its effects on the output temperature and pressure. Intuitively, increasing the flow rate of the gas would increase the gas outlet temperature and the pressure drop through the exchanger. The temperature change can be seen in the heat rate equation:
& =m & gas " C p " ( Q Thot ,in ! T2 )

(D.1)

If the heat rate and gas inlet temperature are held constant, the temperature difference must decrease for an increase in the gas flow rate. This translates to an increase in gas exit temperature. The effect of varying the mass flow rate on pressure drop can be seen

(PT =

2 GT 2 g) t

' 1.5 fLt $ + + K c + K t + 4" ! N P % di % " &Np #

(D.2)

in the above pressure drop calculation [5]. The pressure drop is proportional to the square of the mass velocity of the hot fluid through the tubes. The mass velocity is related to the

GT =

& m N T ! AX

(D.3)

mass flow rate through the above equation and is a function of the cross sectional area of one tube and the number of tubes in one pass of the gas [5]. Therefore, increasing

D-2

themass flow rate of the gas will increase the pressure drop the fluid experiences through the exchanger. The verification was done in Excel and can be seen in figures D.1 and D.2. These values matched the outputs of the Simulink model. The results were expected, as the formulas used were identical. The model was validated, because we were able to reproduce the Simulink results in Excel with a nominal margin of error.

Effect of mass flow rate on gas exit temperature

700
Exit Temperature (Celcius)

600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Mass flow rate (kg/sec)

Figure D.1. Exit Temperature Dependence on Gas Flow Rate

D-3

Effect of mass flow rate on pressure drop

180 160
Pressure Drop (kPa)

140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Mass Flow Rate (kg/sec)

Figure D.2. Pressure Drop Dependence on Gas Flow Rate

D-4

D.2 Simulink Code

function [T2, Pgo, mdot_gas_out]=Secondary_HX(Tx, Pgi, mdot_gas_in) %Tx in Kelvins %Pgi in kPa %mdot_gas_in in kg/s Tgi=Tx-273; Cp_Mix_low=0; value_gas_=[0, 0, 0, 0, 0; 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]; tube_ID=0; Density_Mix=0; Cross_area=0; tube_count=0; tue_length=0; Tgo=0; T_mean=0; low=[0, 0, 0, 0, 0; 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]; new_temp1=0; Pgo=0; Vel=0; Hb=0; Hl=0;

%************************Temperature******************************* Heat_Load=25000; %kW value_gas_=gas_calculator_func(Tgi, Pgi); Cp_Mix_low=value_gas_(2,1); Tgo=Tgi-(Heat_Load/mdot_gas_in/Cp_Mix_low) T_mean=(Tgi+Tgo)/2; %Celcius diff1=100; while diff1>.05 low=gas_calculator_func(T_mean, Pgi); Cp_Mix_low=low(2,1); new_temp1=Tgo; Tgo=Tgi-(Heat_Load/mdot_gas_in/Cp_Mix_low); T_mean=(new_temp1+Tgo)/2; diff1=abs(new_temp1-Tgo); end T_mean=(Tgi+Tgo)/2; Density_Mix=low(2,2); T2=Tgo+273; %************************Pressure loss calculations******************* tube_ID=.03175; Cross_area=pi/4*tube_ID^2; tube_count=200; tube_length=24; %*******************************pipe loss***************************

D-5

absolute_roughness=1.5e-6; %estimated from drawn brass or copper relative_roughness=absolute_roughness/tube_ID; f=.027; %this value from fig 8.12 in Intro to Fluid % %Mechanics by Fox, McDonald, and % %Pritchard % %This must be changed whenever the tube % %inside diameter or Tube side Reynolds % %number changes. % Vel=mdot_gas_in/Density_Mix/Cross_area/tube_count; Hl=f*tube_length/tube_ID/2*Vel^2; %*********************************bends******************************** * radius_of_bends=.1587; %m relative_radius=radius_of_bends/tube_ID; %m equivalent_pipe_length=13; Hb=f*1*equivalent_pipe_length/2*Vel^2; pressure_drop=(Hb+Hl)/1000; Pgo=Pgi-pressure_drop; %Figure 8.16 Fluids book

%in kPa %in kPa

%************************Mass Flow Rate******************************* %there is no leakage and all mass in equals mass out mdot_gas_out=mdot_gas_in; %************************Outputs************************************** T2; Pgo; mdot_gas_out; %Kelvins %kPa %kg/sec

%**********************************************************************

D-6

Appendix E
Matlab Code/Analysis

E-1

E.1 Mass Flow Analysis

clear clc %*******************************inputs******************************* Thi=850; Pgi=3100; Tci=50; Pai=101.5; Q=25000; %******************************hot gas side**************************** %this section will vary the mass flow rate from 20 to 80 kg/sec and %map the hot gas outlet temperature mgi=[20:1:80] counter1_max=length(mgi) counter1=1 while counter1<=counter1_max gas_value=gas_calculator_func(Thi, Pgi); Cp_gas=gas_value(2,1); Tho=Thi-(Q/mgi(counter1)/Cp_gas); Tgm=(Thi+Tho)/2; diff1=100; while diff1>.05 low=gas_calculator_func(Tgm, Pgi); Cp_Mix_low=low(2,1); new_temp1=Tho; Tho=Thi-(Q/mgi(counter1)/Cp_Mix_low); Tgm=(new_temp1+Tho)/2; diff1=abs(new_temp1-Tgm); end gas_out(counter1)=Tho; counter1=counter1+1; end counter_1=1 bug=gas_out(counter_1) while bug<0 bug=gas_out(counter_1) counter_1=counter_1+1 end min_flow_rate_gas=mgi(counter_1-1) figure(1) plot(mgi,gas_out) xlabel('mass flow rate of gas (kg/sec)') ylabel('gas outlet temperature (Celcius)') title('mass flow analysis of hot gas') grid on

E-2

%****************************cold gas side************************** %this section will vary the mass flow rate from 20 to 120 kg/sec and %map the cold air outlet temperature Tci=50; Pai=101.5; Q=25000; mai=[20:1:120]; counter2_max=length(mai); counter2=1 while counter2<=counter2_max air_value=gas_calculator_func(Tci, Pai); Cp_air=air_value(1,1); Tco=Tci+(Q/mai(counter2)/Cp_air); Tam=(Tci+Tco)/2; diff2=100; while diff2>.05 low2=gas_calculator_func(Tam, Pai); Cp_air_low=low2(1,1); new_temp2=Tco; Tco=Tci+(Q/mai(counter2)/Cp_air_low); Tam=(new_temp2+Tco)/2; diff2=abs(new_temp2-Tam); end air_out(counter2)=Tco; counter2=counter2+1; end counter_2=1 bugs=air_out(counter_2) %hold on figure(2) plot(mai,air_out) xlabel('mass flow rate of air (kg/sec)') ylabel('air outlet temperature (Celcius)') title('mass flow analysis of air coolant') grid on %*****************************************************************

E-3

E.2 Air Cooled Heat Exchanger Design Code

%****************************inputs************************************ Heat_Load=25000; %kW mdot_air=80; %kg/sec Tx=850; Px=3100; mdot_gas=55; air_temp=50; air_pres=101.5; %hot in West Texas %Standard pressure in kPa

%**********iterate gas outlet temperature************************* value_gas_=gas_calculator_func(Tx, Px); Cp_Mix_low=value_gas_(2,1); T2=Tx-(Heat_Load/mdot_gas/Cp_Mix_low); T_mean=(Tx+T2)/2; %Celcius diff1=100; while diff1>.05 low=gas_calculator_func(T_mean, Px); Cp_Mix_low=low(2,1); new_temp1=T2; T2=Tx-(Heat_Load/mdot_gas/Cp_Mix_low); T_mean=(new_temp1+T2)/2; diff1=abs(new_temp1-T2); end T_mean=(Tx+T2)/2; %**************************gas properties****************************** value_gas=gas_calculator_func(T_mean, Px); Cp_Mix=value_gas(2,1); Density_Mix=value_gas(2,2); K_Mixture=value_gas(2,3); Viscosity_Mixture=4.113e-5; Gas_constant=value_gas(2,5); Prandtl_gas=.7; %*****************iterate air outlet temperatures******************* value_air=gas_calculator_func(air_temp, air_pres); Cp_air=value_air(1,1); %kJ/kg-K Prandtl_air=.7; Tout_air=air_temp+(Heat_Load/mdot_air/Cp_air); T_air_mean=(Tout_air+air_temp)/2; diff=100; while diff>.05 middle=gas_calculator_func(T_air_mean, air_pres); Cp_air=middle(1,1); new_temp=Tout_air; Tout_air=air_temp+(Heat_Load/mdot_air/Cp_air); %kJ/kg-K %kg/m3 %W/m-K %kg/m-s

E-4

T_air_mean=(Tout_air+air_temp)/2; diff=abs(Tout_air-new_temp); end %************************air properties**************************** value_air=gas_calculator_func(T_air_mean, air_pres); %new values for Cp_air and Tout_air Density_air=value_air(1,2); %kg/m3 K_air=value_air(1,3); %W/m-K Viscosity_air=2.7e-5; %kg/m-s Cp_air; Prandtl_air=.7; %*********************Air Cooled Heat Exchanger********************* delta1=Tx-Tout_air; delta2=T2-air_temp; Tlm=(delta1-delta2)/log(delta1/delta2); F=1; U=102; Area=Heat_Load*1000/U/Tlm/F; Area_need=1.1*Area; %To account for plugging %***************************geometry********************************* tube_OD=.01905; %m tube_thick=.003175; tube_ID=tube_OD-2*tube_thick; %m tube_length=12.5; %m tube_count=410; %number of tubes per bay bays=2 tube_surfarea=pi*tube_OD*tube_length*tube_count*bays; Cross_area=pi/4*tube_ID^2;

%m2

%**************************tube side******************************* Re_tube=4*mdot_gas/pi/tube_ID/tube_count/Viscosity_Mixture; Nu_gas=.023*Re_tube^(4/5)*Prandtl_gas^.3; h_gas=Nu_gas*K_Mixture/tube_ID; %W/m-K %**************************tube bundle****************************** %pipes in a staggered arrangement St=tube_OD*1.25; %See figure 7.11 Incropera and %Dewitt Sl=tube_OD*1.25; %See figure 7.11 Incropera and %Dewitt St_diam=St/tube_OD; Sl_diam=Sl/tube_OD; C1=.518; %if diameter, tube spacing, or arrangement change, %these numbers change m=.556; %see Table 7.5 Incropera and Dewitt effective_area=tube_length*(42*(St-tube_OD)); Vair=mdot_air/Density_air/effective_area; %m/s

E-5

Re_air=Density_air*Vair*tube_OD/Viscosity_air; Nu_air=C1*Re_air^m; h_air=Nu_air*K_air/tube_OD; %W/m-K

%****************************material properties******************** %Inconel alloy 600 r1=tube_ID/2; %m r2=tube_OD/2; %m k_mat=14.9; %W/m2-K Youngs=160000000000; %Young's modulus in Pa Shear=60000000000; %Shear modulus in Pa Sy=310000000 Sys=.5*Sy R_cond=r1/k_mat*log(r2/r1); %**********************overall heat t ransfer coefficient************ U=((1/h_air)+(1/h_gas)+R_cond)^(-1); %W/m-K %******************************************************************** %*************************Pressure loss calculations***************** %******************************pipe loss***************************** absolute_roughness=1.27e-6; %estimated from drawn brass or copper relative_roughness=absolute_roughness/tube_ID; f=.022; %this value from fig 8.12 in Intro to Fluid % %Mechanics by Fox, McDonald, and % %Pritchard % %This must be changed whenever the tube % %inside diameter or Tube side Reynolds % %number changes. % Vel=mdot_gas/Density_Mix/Cross_area/tube_count/2; Hl=f*tube_length/tube_ID/2*Vel^2; %*******************************bends******************************* radius_of_bends=.1587; %m relative_radius=radius_of_bends/tube_ID; %m equivalent_pipe_length=13; Hb=f*1*equivalent_pipe_length/2*Vel^2; %Figure 8.16 Fluids book

pressure_drop=(Hb+Hl)/1000; %in kPa Press_out=Px-pressure_drop; %in kPa %****************************tube bundle******************************* Nl=21; %number tubes in direction of flow f1=.58; %From fig 7.14 Incropera & Dewitt Pl=Sl_diam; Pt=St_diam; variable=(Pt-1)/(Pl-1); X=1.02;

E-6

deltaP=Nl*X*f1*Density_air*Vair^2/2000;

%in kPa

%**************************************************************** %*************************tube stresses****************************** o1=Px*tube_ID/2/tube_thick*1000; %Pa Hoop Stress o2=Px*tube_ID/4/tube_thick*1000; o3=-Px*1000%Pa Stress tmax=o1/2; %Pa Max shear Stress von_mises=(o1^2+o2^2+o3^2-o1*o2-o2*o3-o1*o3)^.5; N=Sy/von_mises; Ns=Sys/tmax; %****************************outputs******************************** Tout_air; %Air Exhaust temperature Re_tube; %tube side reynold's number Re_air; %air side reynold's number h_gas; %tube side convection coefficient h_air; %air side convection coefficient U; %Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient pressure_drop;%Tube side pressure drop deltaP; %air side pressure drop

E-7

E.3 Shell and Tube Design Code

%**************************inputs********************************** Tx=850; Px=3100; mdot_gas=55; air_temp=50; air_pres=101.5; mdot_air=80; Heat_Load=25000; %hot in West Texas %Standard pressure in kPa %kg/sec %kW

**************************iterate gas outlet temp********************** value_gas_=gas_calculator_func(Tx, Px); Cp_Mix_low=value_gas_(2,1); T2=Tx-(Heat_Load/mdot_gas/Cp_Mix_low); T_mean=(Tx+T2)/2; %Celcius diff1=100; while diff1>.05 low=gas_calculator_func(T_mean, Px); Cp_Mix_low=low(2,1); new_temp1=T2; T2=Tx-(Heat_Load/mdot_gas/Cp_Mix_low); T_mean=(Tx+T2)/2; diff1=abs(new_temp1-T2); end T2; %**************************gas properties****************************** value_gas=gas_calculator_func(T_mean, Px); Cp_Mix=value_gas(2,1); Density_Mix=value_gas(2,2); K_Mixture=value_gas(2,3); Viscosity_Mixture=3.815987e-5; Gas_constant=value_gas(2,5); Prandtl_gas=.721; %************************iterate air outlet temp******************** value_air=gas_calculator_func(air_temp, air_pres); Cp_air=value_air(1,1); %kJ/kg-K Prandtl_air=.7; Tout_air=air_temp+(Heat_Load/mdot_air/Cp_air); T_air_mean=(Tout_air+air_temp)/2; diff=100; while diff>.05 middle=gas_calculator_func(T_air_mean, air_pres); %kJ/kg-K %kg/m3 %W/m-K %from online viscosity calculator

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Cp_air=middle(1,1); new_temp=Tout_air; Tout_air=air_temp+(Heat_Load/mdot_air/Cp_air); T_air_mean=(Tout_air+air_temp)/2; diff=abs(Tout_air-new_temp); end Tout_air; %****************************air properties*************************** new_value_air=gas_calculator_func(T_air_mean, air_pres); Density_air=new_value_air(1,2); K_air=new_value_air(1,3); Viscosity_air=2.631616e-5; %Cp_air; %kg/m3 %W/m-K %kg/m-s

%********************************************************************** %At this point you have the desired output temperatures based on the inlet %temperatures and mass flow rates. Also gas and air properties. %**************************shell and tube***************************** %*******log mean temperature difference and correction factor********* n=2; %number of passes

deltaT1=Tx-Tout_air; deltaT2=T2-air_temp; Tlm=(deltaT1-deltaT2)/log(deltaT1/deltaT2); P=(T2-Tx)/(air_temp-Tx); R=(air_temp-Tout_air)/(T2-Tx); S=(R^2+1)^.5/(R-1); W=((1-P*R)/(1-P))^(1/n); %F=(S*log(W))/log((1+W-S+S*W)/(1+S+W-S*W)); F=1; %*******************overall heat transfer coefficient U************** %The first time assume a value and solve for area, then set geometry and %solve for a new U. THis allows you to get another area. Iterate until %value converges. Initial assumption U=300 W/m-K. U=102; %W/m-K

%*********************solve for area******************************** A=Heat_Load*1000/U/F/Tlm; A_required=1.1*A; %Extra 10% for clogging %***************************tube geometry***************************** tube_OD=.01905; tube_thick=.003175; tube_ID=tube_OD-2*tube_thick; tube_length=3.048; tube_count=415; %m %m %m %m 10 ft %number of tubes per gas pass

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tubes_HX=tube_count*2; modules=4;

%tubes per exchanger %number of modules

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total_tubes=modules*tubes_HX ; %total tubes tube_surfarea=pi*tube_OD*tube_length*total_tubes; Cross_area=pi/4*tube_ID^2; Ao=pi*tube_OD*tube_count*tube_length;

%m2

%*************************tube side********************************** Re_tube=4*mdot_gas/pi/tube_ID/tube_count/Viscosity_Mixture; Nu_gas=.023*Re_tube^(4/5)*Prandtl_gas^.3; h_gas=Nu_gas*K_Mixture/tube_ID ; %W/m-K %*************************shell side******************************** fb=.15; Ds=1.5; Gs=mdot_air/(fb*pi/4*Ds^2) Res=tube_OD*Gs/Viscosity_air; Prs=Viscosity_air*Cp_air/K_air; Ji=.236*Res^(-.346); h_air=Ji*Cp_air*Gs/Prs^(2/3); %***************************material properties********************** %Inconel alloy 600 r1=tube_ID/2; %m r2=tube_OD/2; %m k_mat=14.9; %W/m2-K Youngs=160000000000; %Young's modulus in Pa Shear=60000000000; %Shear modulus in Pa Sy=310000000 Sys=.5*Sy R_cond=r1/k_mat*log(r2/r1); %*********************overall heat transfer coefficient**************** U=((1/h_air)+(1/h_gas)+ R_cond)^(-1); %W/m-K %*************************tube material volume************************* volume_of_material=(pi/4)*(tube_OD^2-tube_ID^2)*tube_length*tube_count; %*************************Pressure loss calculations******************* %*******************************pipe loss***************************** absolute_roughness=1.27e-6; %estimated from drawn brass or %copper relative_roughness=absolute_roughness/tube_ID; f=.022; %this value from fig 8.12 in Intro %to Fluid Mechanics by Fox, %McDonald, and Pritchard %tube inside diameter or tube side %Reynolds number changes. % Vel=mdot_gas/Density_Mix/Cross_area/tube_count;

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Hl=f*tube_length/tube_ID/2*Vel^2; %*******************************bends********************************* bend_number=16; radius_of_bends=.1587; %m relative_radius=radius_of_bends/tube_ID; %m equivalent_pipe_length=13; Hb=f*1*equivalent_pipe_length/2*Vel^2; pressure_drop=(Hl+Hb)/1000; Press_out=Px-pressure_drop; %Figure 8.16 Fluids book %in kPa %in kPa

%**************************shell side bundle************************** %**************************tube stresses****************************** o1=Px*tube_ID/2/tube_thick*1000 %Pa Hoop Stress o2=Px*tube_ID/4/tube_thick*1000 %Pa Stress Txy=Px*tube_ID/4/tube_thick*1000 %Pa Max shear Stress o3=-Px*1000 von_mises=(o1^2+o2^2+o3^2-o1*o2-o2*o3-o1*o3)^.5 N=Sy/von_mises N_shear=Sys/Txy %****************************outputs******************************** Tout_air; Re_tube; h_gas; h_air; U; %Air Exhaust temperature %tube side reynold's number %tube side convection coefficient %air side convection coefficient %Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient

value=[T2, Press_out, mdot_gas]

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