Principles of Heat Exchangers

• Overall Heat-Transfer Coefficient

The basic design equation for a heat exchanger is
ⅆ𝑄
ⅆ𝐴 =
𝑈0 Δ𝑇

• where dA is the element of surface area required to transfer an amount of heat dQ at a point in
the exchanger where the overall heat transfer coefficient is U and where the overall bulk
temperature difference between the two streams is Δ𝑇.
You can find the above equation at the HB Sec. 11-4
Principles of Heat Exchangers
• For some problems, Uo varies strongly and nonlinearly throughout the exchanger. In these cases,
it is necessary to evaluate Uo and ΔT at several intermediate values and numerically or graphically
integrate. For many practical cases, it is possible to calculate a constant mean overall coefficient
Uom from Eq. (11-2) and define a corresponding mean value of ΔTm, such that
𝑄𝑇
𝐴0 =
𝑈𝑜𝑚 ∆𝑇𝑚
Principles of Heat Exchangers
Principles of Heat Exchangers
 Heat Exchanger Effectiveness
• The heat exchanger effectiveness (ε) is defined as the ratio of the actual rate of heat transfer in a given heat
exchanger to the maximum possible amount of heat transfer if an infinite heat transfer area were available.