Journal of Food Process Engineering ISSN 1745–4530

DESIGN ASPECT OF SCRAPER BLADE ASSEMBLY FOR

ENHANCING FILM HEAT TRANSFER COEFFICIENT OF SCRAPED
SURFACE HEAT EXCHANGER
DHRUV JUYAL1, I.K. SAWHNEY, A.K. DODEJA and P.S. MINZ
Dairy Engineering Division, ICAR - National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, Haryana, India

1
Corresponding author. ABSTRACT
TEL: 19190 3440 2959
FAX: 19118 4225 0042; Scraped surface heat exchangers (SSHEs) are known for thermal processing of
EMAIL: dhruvjuyal@gmail.com viscous food products. Heat transfer coefficient is one of the main parameter
which influences the performance of processing liquid products in SSHE. The
Received for Publication January 16, 2016
present study was undertaken to determine the film heat transfer coefficient for
Accepted for Publication April 15, 2016
different blade assembly configurations. Milk was concentrated from 15 to 26%
doi:10.1111/jfpe.12408 total solids using SSHE. Effect of number of blades (2, 4, 6), weight of blades (1.6,
1.75, 2.0 kg) and rotor speed (150, 175, 200 rpm) was investigated on scraped film
heat transfer coefficient (hs) using Response Surface Methodology. The results
showed that hs increased linearly with increase in number of blades as well as rotor
speed and that it was inversely related to blade weight. The hs varied from 695.3 to
1,415.4 W/m2K. The study was helpful in determining the design factors affecting
film heat transfer coefficient of SSHE.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
In many of the earlier studies on SSHE, effect of scraper speed, flow rate or the
number of blades has been individually studied. Therefore, effort was made to
study the combined effect of these parameters. This article gives important insights
on the design aspect of rotor blade assembly for thin film SSHE.

INTRODUCTION
Heat transfer to flowing products is a frequently applied
operation in the food industry. Sometimes it is not practical
to heat or cool certain products in conventional plate or
tubular heat exchangers, on account of their viscous charac-
ter. Moreover, if heat-sensitive products are heated in such
an equipment, for instance for sterilization, they may deteri-
orate on the heated surface. Heat transfer is often impeded
by the formation of a stagnant layer at the heat transferring
surface and can be improved by continuously scraping the
surface. In this way formation of a stagnant film is obviated
and the rotation results in the scraped off layer continuously
mixing with the bulk, while fresh material is moved to the
heated or cooled wall (Van Boxtel and De Fielliettaz
Goethart 1983). In the food industry heat treatment equip-
ment have more and more importance, which sterilize prod-
ucts of different viscosity preserving their taste, flavor, color
and substance, and also meet requirements of aseptic tech-
nology. Scraped surface heat exchangers (SSHEs) work effi-
ciently in these conditions. In this type of heat exchangers
scraping blades prevent material from burning on the wall
under short-time intensive heat treatment (Orvos et al.
1994). Cooking of high-viscosity products in the food indus-
try is primarily done in kettles, where the possibilities to
control and optimize the heat treatment process generally
are very limited. The increased demand for efficient and
labor-saving processes in the food industry favors the appli-
cation of continuous cooking with heat exchangers. For
heating of high viscosity products with or without particles,
the SSHE is the most suitable heat exchanger (Harrod 1986).
SSHEs have been in use in food and chemical industries
for many years because of their unique characteristics of
handling difficult process fluids (Abichandani and Sarma,
1988). In these heat exchangers, the product to be heated/
cooled flows axially in an annular section between a station-
ary outer cylinder and a powered coaxial rotor. The inner

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DESIGN ASPECT OF SCRAPER BLADE ASSEMBLY
FIG. 1. SCRAPED SURFACE HEAT EXCHANGER.
wall of the outer cylinder is periodically scraped by blades
attached to the rotor, while the heating or cooling fluid cir-
culates into the external jacket, which is generally equipped
with flow baffles (Rainieri et al. 2014). SSHE is more suitable
for heat transfer to viscous and heat sensitive products. The
mechanical action of blades on the heating surface safe-
guards against fouling, reduces the width of residence time
distribution (RTD) and facilitates processing of difficult
products in general (Dodeja et al. 1989).
SSHEs handle products that contain particles, and that
tend to deposit and form films on the heat transfer surface.
The versatility of an SSHE also lies in the use of different
heat transfer media (i.e., water, brine, steam, freon and
ammonia) for the products that require remarkably different
processing, i.e., mixing, emulsification and whipping (Rao
and Hartel, 2006). For food processors, SSHEs provide a way
to control the microstructure via effective regulation of shear
rates. There has been some advancement in this aspect of
SSHEs where shear rates have been linked directly to food
microstructures (Spiegel 1999; Regand and Goff 2002).
SSHE may present different geometrical designs and innova-
tive solutions can be implemented to operate under specific
conditions or to improve selected features of the exchanger,
as the heat transfer coefficient or the power consumption
(D’Addio et al. 2013). Scraped-surface heat exchangers are
usually applied for (i) processing of viscous materials, where
the scraper action serves to increase heat transfer, and (ii)
processing crystallizing media, where the scraper mechanism
is installed in order to prevent scaling, i.e., undesired growth
of a crystal layer on the heat exchanger wall (De Goede and
De Jong, 1993). SSHEs are very useful in cooling processes
where the phase change of aqueous mixtures take place to
FIG. 2. ROTOR BLADE ASSEMBLY.
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D. JUYAL ET AL.
TABLE 1. DIFFERENT DESIGN CONFIGURATION OF SCRAPER BLADE
ASSEMBLY
Weight of each Number of Total weight of
Sl. No. blade (kg) blades blades (kg)
1 1.60 2 3.2
2 4 6.4
3 6 9.6
4 1.75 2 3.5
5 4 7
6 6 10.5
7 2.0 2 4
8 4 8
9 6 12
remove the growing ice crystals layer on the exchange sur-
face, leading to an improvement in the heat removal by the
refrigerant (Saraceno et al. 2011).
Several heat transfer problems are encountered in process-
ing of milk and its products. Because of wide range of rheo-
logical properties associated with milk and its products,
severe fouling results when they are processed in conven-
tional heat exchangers. This imposes restrictions on the
operating temperatures and time. This problem can be over-
come by employing the simple method of scraping the heat
transfer surface continuously. SSHE is the most suitable heat
exchanger for handling high viscosity and heat sensitive
products, which tend to foam and foul heat transfer surface
(Boccardi et al. 2010; Devaraju et al. 2013). In this technique
the slow moving layer at the surface which restricts the rate
of heat transfer is rapidly removed and mixed with bulk of
liquid. Simultaneously fresh product is brought into contact
with heat transfer surface. The action of blades substantially
accelerates heat and mass transfer rates by creating turbu-
lence and pumping action. This mechanical agitation safe-
guards against fouling, greatly reduces the width of RTD
(Dodeja et al. 1990). There are several dairy products which
require processing at high temperature, essentially evapora-
tion at atmospheric pressure. This demands the heating
medium to be in the range of 110–1308C. Severe scaling of
the surface would result at such high temperatures. There-
fore, use of SSHE is essential for manufacture of these prod-
ucts. For designing such heat exchangers, information on an
overall heat transfer coefficient under actual conditions is
required (Abichandani and Sarma 1991). Heat transfer coef-
ficient is one of the main parameter which influences the
performance of processing liquid products in SSHE. Heat
transfer coefficient in SSHE is affected by blade rotational
speed, mass flow rate, actual fluid velocity in the exchanger
and the backmixing intensity (D’Addio et al. 2012, 2013).
As SSHE can be used for concentration of liquid food prod-
uct, the present study was undertaken to determine the film
heat transfer coefficient for different blade assembly
configurations.
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D. JUYAL ET AL.
FIG. 3. CROSS-SECTIONAL AREA OF BLADE.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Experimental Setup
The present study was carried out in first stage of three
stages SSHE system (Dodeja and Deep 2012; Singh and
Dodeja 2012). The setup consists of three horizontal cylin-
drical SSHE shells which is installed in a cascade fashion to
make the design compact and save space. The shell of SSHE
is jacketed for steam supply (Fig. 1). This facilitates easy
transfer of milk from one cylinder into the other. The scrap-
per speeds and the operating steam pressures in all the three
stages can be varied and controlled separately. The shell was
designed to operate at a maximum steam pressure of 490.33
kPa. Jacket is provided with separate steam pressure gauge,
spring loaded safety valves and vent cock. The scraper
assembly was modified to have provision to fit two to six
blades as per requirement (Fig. 2). The scraper assembly was
mounted on roller bearing housed in end cover of the SSHE
shell.
FIG. 4. RESPONSE SURFACE PLOT FOR SCRAPED FILM HEAT TRANSFER COEFFICIENT (hs) AS INFLUENCED BY ROTOR SPEED (RPM) AND NUMBER
OF BLADES FOR 1.6 KG BLADE WEIGHT.
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DESIGN ASPECT OF SCRAPER BLADE ASSEMBLY
Scraper Blade Assembly. The objective of designing
new blade assembly was to study the effect on heat transfer.
The scraper blade assembly was modified to fix two to six
blades at equal angular distance (Fig. 2). Table 1 shows the
different blade configurations. The blades were designed
using the following equations:
i. Weight of blade
WB 5Ds 3Ac 3L (1)
where, WB is the weight of blade, kg; Ds is the density of
stainless steel, kg/m3; Ac is the cross-sectional area of
blade, m2 and L is the length of blade, m.
ii. Cross-sectional area of blade
Details for cross-sectional area of blade are shown
in Fig. 3. The cross-sectional area can be calculated
using the following equation:
Ac 50:25pðy1 Þ1y2 t (2)
where, t is the thickness, m; y1 is the width of curved
section, m and y2 is the width of rectangular section, m.
Determination of Film Heat Transfer
Coefficient
Buffalo milk (6% fat and 9% SNF) was used in the study
and milk flow rate was kept constant at 190–195 kg/h.
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FIG. 5. RESPONSE SURFACE PLOT FOR SCRAPED FILM HEAT TRANSFER COEFFICIENT (hs) AS INFLUENCED BY ROTOR SPEED (RPM) AND NUMBER
OF BLADES FOR 1.75 KG BLADE WEIGHT.

 
Experiments were planned using response surface methodol- Do 1 1 1 Do Do
3 5 2 2 3 In (5)
ogy in Stat Ease Design Expert (v. 8.0) software and statisti- Di hs Uo ho 2Km Di
cal analysis was performed. The thermal performance of thin
film SSHE was evaluated in terms of overall heat transfer where, Di is the inside diameter of the heat exchanger
coefficient (Uo), which was determined using the following (m), Do is the outside diameter of the heat exchanger (m)
equation: and Km is the thermal conductivity of wall material (W/
mK). For SS 304, Km 5 16.27 W/mK. Steam film coeffi-
Uo 5Q=Ao  DT (3) cient ho and Uo is overall heat transfer coefficient is based
on outside heat transfer area of heat exchanger (Abichan-
where Uo is the overall heat transfer coefficient (W/m2K); dani and Sarma, 1991). Steam-side heat-transfer coeffi-
Q is the heat flux (W); Ao is the outside area of heat cients for condensing steam on a horizontal pipe were
exchanger (m2); temperature difference DT 5 Ts 2 T1, Ts calculated assuming film type condensation (Mcadams
is the steam temperature (8C), T1 is the product inlet 1963):
temperature (8C).  "c 21=3
4
The heat transferred (Q) was determined from heat ho 51:51 u (6)
uptake equation: lf

Q5Mv Lv (4) where, g is the mass flow rate of condensate (kg/s) from the
lowest point divided by the heated length.
where, Mv is the rate of evaporation (kg/s) and Lv is latent
 1=3
heat of vaporization of water at atmospheric pressure (kJ/kg). kf 3 q f 2 g
u5 (7)
The overall heat transfer coefficient constitutes the scraped lf 2
film coefficient hs (W/m2K), metal wall resistance and steam
film coefficient ho (W/m2K). Calculation of the scraped film where, kf is the thermal conductivity of the condensate (W/
heat transfer coefficient (hs) was done using the following mK), qf is the density of the condensate film (kg/m3) and lf
equation: is the absolute viscosity of the condensate film (Pas).

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D. JUYAL ET AL.
FIG. 6. RESPONSE SURFACE PLOT FOR SCRAPED FILM HEAT TRANSFER COEFFICIENT (hs) AS INFLUENCED BY ROTOR SPEED (RPM) AND NUMBER
OF BLADES FOR 2.0 KG BLADE WEIGHT.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Effect of Number of Blades on Scraped Film
Heat Transfer Coefficient hs
Conventional SSHEs are of two or four blade configuration.
Therefore the rotor blade assembly was modified to accom-
modate up to six blades. Blades assist in film formation and
scraping action. Blades scrape the inner surface avoiding milk
fouling and enhance the heat transfer rates by increasing the
fluid velocity near the exchange surface and by generating
turbulence (D’Addio et al. 2013). Linear increase in film heat
transfer coefficient (hs) was observed when number of blades
in the rotor blade assembly was increased (Figs. 4–6). The hs
increased by 49 and 80.6% when number of blades was
increased from two to six, respectively. Higher heat transfer
in four to six numbers of blades may be attributed to more
quantity of milk being lifted and spread over the heat
exchanger surface. Most of the studies on SSHEs are related
to thermal treatment for which two to four blades are used.
In the present study, final milk concentration at SSHE outlet
was in the range of 24–27% total solids. The process involved
phase change in which milk was converted from liquid to
semi-solid state during concentration in SSHE. Intense foul-
ing is observed when milk is concentrated above 20% total
solids at low rpm (<100). For such applications six blades
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DESIGN ASPECT OF SCRAPER BLADE ASSEMBLY
are more suitable for immediate scraping which results in
high heat transfer rate. It was observed that number of blades
has more pronounced effect on hs than scraper speed.
Effect of Scraper Speed on Scraped Film
Heat Transfer Coefficient hs
It was observed that with increase in scraper speed, film heat
transfer coefficient (hs) increased significantly (P < 0.05).
The increase of hs with rotor speed can be attributed to the
greater turbulence and higher frequency of its mixing with
the liquid pool. Both these factors cause high rates of heat
transfer. Dependence of the heat transfer coefficient upon
the scraper speed was similar to that described by Sykora
et al. (1968) and D’Addio et al. (2013). It has been reported
for thin film SSHE that very low (<100 rpm) and very high
(>200 rpm) scraper speeds generally result in lower rate of
heat transfer (Dodeja et al. 1990). In a similar study,
Sangrame et al. (2000) reported reduced heat exchange at
higher scraper speed (>300 rpm) as the contact time of fluid
film with the heating surface is decreased.
Effect of Weight of Blades on Scraped Film
Heat Transfer Coefficient hs
Study indicates that hs is significantly affected by weight
of blade. The hs reduces as weight of the blade increases,
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as for heavy blades a larger amount of fluid is present in
the form of fillet and its intermixing with the fluid film
by blade action was relatively less. The hs was in the range
of 972.2–1,415.4 W/m2K for 1.60 kg weight of blade,
880.2–1,385.6 W/m2K for 1.75 kg weight of blade and
695.3–1,293.5 W/m2K for 2 kg weight of the blade,
respectively. The inverse relation of hs with blade weight
could be because of higher film thickness in lighter
blades. If the blade weight is more, the centrifugal force
acting at the blade edge – cylinder surface interface
increases. And there will be more pressing of blades radi-
cally toward the cylinder. Such condition will cause for-
mation of very thin film resulting in low heat transfer.
One constraint in reducing the blade weight was the
structural strength of the blades which should not bend
under shearing at high speed.
Model for Scraped Film Heat Transfer
Coefficient
The linear model for scraped film heat transfer coefficient
was suggested by the software. The non-significant lack of
fit test indicates that the model is sufficiently accurate for
predicting the hs, scraped film heat transfer coefficient for
variables within the evaluation range. The adequate pre-
cision which measures the signal-to-noise ratio was found
to be 11.620 which was appreciably higher than 4.00 for
scraped film heat transfer coefficient for high precision
ability. The effect of number of blades, rotor speed and
weight of the blades on scraped film heat transfer coeffi-
cient was significant (P < 0.05). Linear regression equa-
tion to predict the scraped film heat transfer coefficient as
affected by different factors (A: Number of blades, B:
Rotor speed, C: Weight of blades) in terms of actual fac-
tors is as follows:
hs ðW=m2 KÞ51747:328173:45A14:766B2453:691C (8)
CONCLUSION
It can be inferred that higher scraped film heat transfer coef-
ficient can be achieved by increasing the scraper speed and
number of blades, while higher blade weight resulted in
lower values. Film heat transfer coefficient varied from 695.3
to 1,415.4 W/m2K. The hs was maximum (1,415.4 W/m2K)
at 1.6 kg blade weight, six number of blades and 200 rpm
rotor speed. For design and operation of SSHE all the three
parameters, namely, number of blades, weight of blades and
rotor speed are important. Thus, weight of rotor blade
assembly can be reduced without compromising the struc-
tural strength of the blades and it will also result in higher
heat transfer rates.
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D. JUYAL ET AL.
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