OPTIMIZATION OF PROCESS PARAMETERS IN A RISING F I L M

EVAPORATOR BY USING STATISTICAL E X P E R I M E N T A L DESIGN

Mansoor-ul-Hassan Shah *, Muhammad Imran Ahmad *, MisbahUllah*

*U.E.T, Peshawar, Pakistan, ** U.E.T, Peshawar, Pakistan

Correspondence Author: imran. ahmad@nwfuet.edu.pk

Abstract: A rising film evaporator is similar to vertical tube heat exchanger, where a hot fluid, such as steam is introduced in the
shell side and a cold fluid such as sugar solution is fed in the tube side. In this work the optimum operating conditions in a rising film
evaporator are determined to maximize the heat transfer coefficient. Afull two-level factorial statistical experimental design method
is employed for this purpose. The parameters investigated in this work are the main and interaction effects of feed temperature, re-
circulation ratio, Reynolds number and steam pressure. Selected process response is the heat transfer coefficient for the rising film
evaporator. The results presented in this paper may help in understanding the combined effects of the variations in process
parameters on the performance of evaporators in sugar industries.

Keywords: Statistical experimental design; Evaporator; Optimisation.

1. Introduction at that height within the tubes where the liquor

Evaporation is a process used to concentrate aqueous
solutions. It involves removing volatile solvent from
an aqueous solution consisting of non-volatile solute
by vaporization, in a vessel known as evaporator [1].
Evaporation process begins with a liquid product
and ends up with a more concentrated liquid as the
main product. In some special cases, the evaporated,
volatile component is the main product, for example
in water desalination the vapors obtained by the
evaporation process are condensed and used for
drinking purposes. Similarly the water that contains
minerals is evaporated to obtain solid free water
which can then be used in boilers, and for other
special requirements. In all these cases the
condensed water is the desired product [2].
Evaporation is one of the most energy intensive
processes and is used extensively in processing
foods, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, sugar industries,
and paper and pulp industry [2,3].
There are different types of evaporators like, natural
circulation evaporators, forced circulation
evaporators, rising film tubular evaporators, falling
film tubular evaporators [2,3].
Rising film evaporator is a tubular exchanger
consisting of a shell, a vapor liquid separator at the
top and tubes inside the shell. The steam flows in the
shell while the liquid inside the tubes. Feed enters the
bottom of the heating tubes and vaporization begins
temperature exceeds the boiling temperature at the
existing pressure. As the liquor moves up inside the
tubes, the liquor starts rapid boiling and additional
vapor is produced and the velocity of the liquid-
vapor mixture increases. The vapor-liquid mixture
then enters to the cyclone separator where they are
separated.
Rising Film evaporators operate in exactly the same
way as the natural circulation calandrias, the
difference is that the tubes in rising film evaporators
are larger than calandrias. The tubes in vertical rising
film evaporators are 25 to 50 mm in diameter and 3 to
10 m long. Rising film evaporators are especially
effective in concentrating liquids that tend to foam.
Foam is broken when the high velocity mixture of
liquid and vapor impinges against the vapor head
baffle [2].
The previous work on vertical tube evaporators
employs one factor at a time approach for
experimental investigations. A detailed account of
research studies on rising/falling film evaporators
can be found elsewhere [5].
The previous work does not account for combined
effects of factors on the heat transfer coefficient of
rising film evaporators. Therefore, in this work a
comparison of statistical experimental design with
conventional experimental strategies is presented.

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Optimization of Process Parameters in a Rising Film Evaporator by Using Statistical Experimental Design
2. Experimental Work
2.1 Apparatus
The equipment used for experimentation is
ARMFIELD RISING F I L M EVAPORATOR
STEAM UOP20-X-STM. The heating medium is
steam which is provided by a steam generator
associated with the evaporation unit. The schematic
of the experimental set up is shown in Fig. 1.
The experimental unit is a floor standing tubular
frame work for an evaporation system. It can be
arranged as rising or falling film with single or
double effect evaporation system. The unit is
provided with full set of instrumentation.
Thermocouples are available at twelve different
points to measure the temperature of the product and
heating fluid. The unit also comprises of a feed
pump, vacuum pump, condenser, condensate vessel,
temperature control feed preheater of 2kW and
collection tanks.
Product Condensate
vessel vessel
Fig. 1: Process flow diagram of UOP20-PHW double effect
rising film (UOP Operating Manual)
2.2 Plan ofexperiments
This work is focused on the study and performance
evaluation of vertical tube rising film evaporators for
sugar industry. Evaporation heat transfer coefficient
is measured as a function of the system operating
parameters including, feed flow rate, Re-circulation
ratio, feed temperature and pressure of steam.
NFC-IEFR Journal o f Engineering & Scientific Research
Various experiments are performed to investigate the
effect of different parameters on heat transfer
coefficient in vertical tube rising film evaporator.
2.2.1 Onefactor at a time approach
In this approach the effect of one factor is
investigated while all the remaining factors are kept
constant. For each data points four readings are taken
and then mean value is reported. The data is
presented in the form of graphs.
2.2.2 Screening Experiments
In screening experiments the aim is to identify
factors that significantly influence the response, i-e
the overall heat transfer coefficient of the rising film
evaporator. The screening experiments also help to
identify whether the interaction effects of various
factors need to be taken in to account for
evaporators.
3. Results And Discussion
In this section the results of experimental work are
presented and discussed briefly. The Reynolds
number ranges from 590 to 1265 and it is observed
that the heat transfer coefficient (U) increases
linearly with increase in Reynolds number as shown
in Fig. 2. With increase in Reynolds number the
turbulence increases which in turn increase the heat
transfer coefficient (U).
3000 T 1
Product
vessel
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
NRe
Fig. 2 Variation in heat transfer coefficient with respect to the
Reynolds's number
The increase in Re-circulation ratio (R) resulted in
increase in the heat transfer coefficient (U) as shown
in Fig. 3. Amaximum is achieved atR= 0.8. With any
further increase in Re-circulation ratio the heat
transfer coefficient starts decreasing.
Optimization of Process Parameters in a Rising Film Evaporator by Using Statistical Experimental Design

3500

3000

2500
~ 1000 ig 2000

i 1500

1000

500

0 A , , , , 1

Fig. 3: Variation in heat transfer coefficient with respect to the 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5

Re-circulation ratio Pst(bar)

Increase in feed temperature also increases the heat Fig. 5: Variation in heat transfer coefficient with respect to
steam pressure
transfer coefficient (U) as can be seen in Fig. 4.
When feed enters the evaporator, a part of steam is
coefficient is higher than the maximum value
used to bring its temperature to boiling temperature
achieved in the one-factor-at-a-time approach. It
and the rest is used to accomplish evaporation. When
may also be observed from Table 2 that when the
feed enters at high temperatures, less amount of heat
feed flow rate, and re-circulation ratio are kept
is required by steam to bring it to the boiling
constant at maximum values the resulting heat
temperature and large part of steam is used to
transfer coefficient is higher than the one-factor-at-
accomplish evaporation. This increases the heat
a-time approach. The results shown in Table 2
transfer coefficient (U) and also mass of vapors
indicate that the feed temperature may not affect the
produced.
heat transfer coefficient of the rising film evaporator
2300 -|
significantly.
2250 — s *
2200 JT^^
Table 1: Natural and codified values of parameters
- 2150
2100 No Natural Values C o d i f i e d Values
Factors
J 2050 AT
Min Max Min Max
=
2000
1 Feed f l o w rale ( m l / m i n ) 80 1 70 -1 +1
1950
2 Rc-circulation ratio 0.2 1.0 -1 +1
1900 * —
3 F e e d T e m p e r a t u r e (<C 20 70 -1 +1
1850 -I , , , , , , , 4 S t e a m p r e s s u r e (bars) 0.1 0.4 -1 + 1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tfeed(°c)
Table 2: Experimental design matrix for full two level
factorial designs
Fig. 4: Variation in heat transfer coefficientwith respect to feed
Feed F l o w
temperature rate
2
(ml/min) R Pst ( b a r ) Tf°C LJ(W/m .K)
-1 -1 -1 -1 1892.443

The increase in steam pressure increases the inlet 1 -1 -1 -1 2760.527

-1 1 -1 -1 2353.506
temperature of the stem due to which it increases ?T 1 1 -1 -1 35 13.506

as shown in Fig. 5. ?T is the temperature difference -1 -1 1 -1 1894.204

2486.007
-1 -1
of the heating medium and boiling temperature of -1 1 1 -1 2239.223
2924.247
the feed. Heat transfer coefficient increases linearly -1
1 1
-1
1
-1
-1
1 2368.248
with the increase in ?T, because as the temperature 1 -1 -1 1 2944.641
-1 1 -1 1 2788.692
difference increases the driving force for heat -1 3596.286

transfer increases resulting in higher heat transfer -1 -1 1 1 2107.042

1 -1 1 1 2607.3 1 9
coefficient (U). -1 1 1 1 2483.674
1 1 1 1 3 1 94.603

The minimum and maximum values of the factors

investigated in the screening experiments are shown 4. Conclusions
in Table 1.
The overall heat transfer coefficient of rising film
evaporators varies linearly as a function of Reynolds
The results of the screening experiments are shown
number, steam temperature, Re-circulation ratio and
in Table 2. It can be seen from Table 2 that on three
feed temperature. The heat transfer coefficient
different occasions the overall heat transfer

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Optimization of Process Parameters in a Rising Film Evaporator by Using Statistical Experimental Design

increases with Re-circulation ratio achieving a

maximum value at R=0.8. Any further increase in
Re-circulation ratio decrease the heat transfer
coefficient.

The results presented in this paper show that the heat

transfer coefficient of rising film evaporators,
increases significantly due to the combined effects
of Reynolds's number, Re-circulation ratio, and
steam pressure. The feed temperature is observed to
have a relatively, insignificant effect on the heat
transfer coefficient of the rising film evaporator.
Further research efforts are required to determine the
optimum values of the parameters using industrial
sugar solutions in order to improve the efficiency of
evaporators in sugar industries.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to acknowledge the efforts of

Prof. Dr. Hisham El-Dessouky for establishing
research culture at the Department of Chemical
Engineering, UET Peshawar.

References

[1] Coulson, J.M. And Richardson, J.F,

"Chemical Engineering", Volume 2, 5 th
Edition, Butterworth-He inemann, Oxford,
2002.
[2] McCabe, W.L., Smith, J.C., and Harriott Peter,
"Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering",
5th Edition McGraw Hill International, 1993.
[3] Al-Najem, N . M . , Ezuddin, K . Y . , Darwish,
M . A , "Heat transfer analysis of preheated
turbulent falling films in vertical tube
evaporators", Desalination, Volume 115, pp.
43-55,1998.
[4] M . H i g a , A.J., Freitas, A . C . , Bannwart, R . j . ,
Zemp, "Thermal integration of multiple effect
evaporator in sugar plant", Applied Thermal
Engineering, Volume 29, pp. 515-522, 2009.
[5] Prost, J.S., Gonzalez, M . T . , Urbicain, M . J ,
"Determination and correlation of heat
transfer coefficients in a falling film
evaporator", Journal of Food Engineering,
Volume 73, pp. 320-326, 2006.

NFC-IEFR Journal o f Engineering & Scientific Research