THERMAL UNIT OPERATION T

ChEng 3113
January Semester 2023

Dr. Sintayehu Mekuria Hialegiorgis

Mr.Ibsa Neme

Department of Chemical Engineering

Addis Ababa Science and Technology University

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 Outline
Chapter 2: Classification of heat exchanging
equipments
• Introduction and Basic Concepts
• Classification of Heat Exchanger
• Classification by Heat Transfer Process
• Classification by Compactness
• Classification by Construction Type
• Classification by Flow Arrangement

Note: Active learning Techniques used

• Advanced Organizer
• Intermittent Discussion
• Closure Focused Discussions
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 Lesson Outcomes (LO):
The objective of this chapter is to describe most of these heat
exchangers in some detail using classification schemes.
At the end of this topic the students are:
1. Able to define heat exchangers, classify heat exchangers
according to transfer processes, degree of surface
compactness, construction features, flow arrangements, and
heat transfer mechanisms.
2. Able to perform a detailed classification in each category of
heat exchangers, the terminology associated with a variety of
these exchangers and out line its practical applications.
3. Able to identify major applications of most types of heat
exchangers.

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 Text Book

Incropera, D. P. Dewitt, T. L. Bergman, A. S. Lavine.

Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, 6th Ed. Wiley,
2007.

Reference Books:
• Cengel, A. Y. and Ghajar, J. A., Heat and Mass Transfer:
Fundamentals and Applications, 5th Ed. McGraw Hill 2015.
• Holman, J. P., Heat Transfer, 10th Ed., McGraw Hill, 2010.
• Dutta, B. K. Heat Transfer, Principles and Applications,
Prentice-Hall, 2001.
• Ozisik, M. N., Heat Transfer: A Basic Approach, McGraw Hill,
2001

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 Introduction
• Heat exchangers are devices that facilitate the exchange of
heat between two fluids that are at different temperatures
while keeping them from mixing with each other.
 Is a device which is used to facilitate the exchange of
heat between two mixtures, from the hotter one to the
cooler one.
 Is a device that is used to transfer thermal energy
(enthalpy) between two or more fluids, between a solid
surface and a fluid, or between solid particulates and a
fluid, at different temperatures and in thermal contact.
 Introduction
• Typical applications involve heating or cooling of a fluid stream
of concern and evaporation or condensation of single- or
multicomponent fluid streams.
• Heat exchanger is used in wide range of applications
•Heating and air-conditioning systems
•Food and chemical processing
•Oil refining
•Power production plants
•Waste heat recovery
•Vehicles
The objective may be to recover or reject heat, or sterilize,
pasteurize, fractionate, distill, concentrate, crystallize, or control a
process fluid.
 Introduction
• In a few heat exchangers, the fluids exchanging heat are in direct
contact.
• In most heat exchangers, heat transfer between fluids takes place
through a separating wall or into and out of a wall in a transient
manner.
 Ideally the fluids do not mix or leak.
 Heat transfer in a heat exchanger involves convection in each fluid
and conduction through the wall separating the two fluids.
 Overall heat transfer coefficient U, accounts for the contribution of
all these effects on heat transfer.
 The rate of heat transfer between the two fluids at a location in a
heat exchanger depends on the magnitude of the temperature
difference at that location, which varies along the heat exchanger.

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 Introduction
• Different heat transfer applications require different types
of hardware and different configurations of heat transfer
equipment.
• The attempt to match the heat transfer hardware to the
heat transfer requirements within the specified
constraints has resulted in numerous types of innovative
heat exchanger designs.
• Heat exchangers are therefore, classified using different
techniques as indicated here under;
 Classification of Heat Exchanger
1. By Heat Transfer Process
 Direct
 in direct
2. By Compactness
 Compact heat exchanger
 Cross flow
3. By Construction Type
 Tubular Heat Exchangers
 Plate Heat Exchangers
 Extended Surface Heat Exchangers
4. By Flow Arrangement
 Parallel-flow
 Counter-flow
 Cross-flow

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 Classification of Heat Exchanger
1.By Transfer Process
By the heat transfer processes, heat exchanger can be further
classified as direct contact and indirect contact heat
exchanger.
i. Direct-Contact Heat Exchangers
• In a direct-contact exchanger, two fluid streams come into
direct contact, exchange heat, and are then separated.
• Common applications of a direct-contact exchanger involve
mass transfer in addition to heat transfer, such as in
evaporation, cooling and rectification.
• The enthalpy of phase change in such an exchanger
generally represents a significant portion of the total energy
transfer.
• The phase change generally enhances the heat transfer
rate.
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 Classification according to Transfer Processes

• The advantage of direct-contact heat exchangers over

indirect contact heat exchngers are:
very high heat transfer rates are achievable,
the exchanger construction is relatively
inexpensive, and
the fouling problem is generally nonexistent, due to
the absence of a heat transfer surface (wall) between
the two fluids.
• However, the applications are limited to those cases
where a direct contact of two fluid streams is permissible.

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 Classification according to Transfer Processes

• Direct contact heat exchangers may be further classified as

follows.
a. Immiscible Fluid Exchangers.
• In this type, two immiscible fluid streams are brought into
direct contact.
• These fluids may be single-phase fluids, or they may
involve condensation or vaporization.
• Condensation of organic vapors and oil vapors with water
or air are typical examples.
 Classification according to Transfer Processes

b.Gas–Liquid Exchangers.
• In this type, one fluid is a gas (more commonly, air) and the
other a low-pressure liquid (more commonly, water) and are
readily separable after the energy exchange.
• In these exchangers, more than 90% of the energy transfer is by
virtue of mass transfer (due to the evaporation of the liquid), and
convective heat transfer is a minor mechanism.
• A ‘‘wet’’ (water) cooling tower with forced- or natural-draft airflow
is the most common application.
• Other applications are the air-conditioning spray chamber, spray
drier, spray tower, and spray pond.

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 Classification according to Transfer Processes

c. Liquid–Vapor Exchangers.
• In this type, typically steam is partially or fully condensed using
cooling water, or water is heated with waste steam through direct
contact in the exchanger.
• Noncondensables and residual steam and hot water are the
outlet streams.
• Common examples are desuperheaters and open feedwater
heaters (also known as deaeraters) in power plants.
 Classification according to Transfer Processes

ii. Indirect contact

• In an indirect-contact heat exchanger, the fluid streams remain
separate and the heat transfers continuously through an
impervious dividing wall or into and out of a wall in a transient
manner.
• Thus, ideally, there is no direct contact between thermally
interacting fluids.
• This type of heat exchanger, also referred to as a surface heat
exchanger. No mixing of fluids
Example: Car radiators, shell and tube heat exchangers
• It can be further classified into
 direct-transfer type,
storage type, and
fluidized-bed exchangers.
 Classification according to Transfer Processes

a. Direct-Transfer Type Exchangers.

• In this type, heat transfers continuously from the hot fluid
to the cold fluid through a dividing wall.
• Although a simultaneous flow of two (or more) fluids is
required in the exchanger, there is no direct mixing of the
two (or more) fluids because each fluid flows in separate
fluid passages.
–In general, there are no moving parts in most such
heat exchangers.
• This type of exchanger is designated as a recuperative
heat exchanger or simply as a recuperator.

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 Classification according to Transfer Processes

• Some examples of direct transfer type heat exchangers

are tubular, plate-type, and extended surface exchangers.

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 Classification according to Transfer Processes

b. Storage Type Exchangers.

• In a storage type exchanger, both fluids flow alternatively
through the same flow passages, and hence heat transfer is
intermittent.
• When the hot fluid flows through the passages in an interval of
time, heat is transferred from the fluid to the passages, which
stores it in the form of an increase in its internal energy.
• This stored energy is then transferred to the cold fluid as it
flows through the passages in the next interval of time.

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 Classification according to Transfer Processes

• The passages is then subjected to periodic heating and

cooling.
• The heat transfer surface (or flow passages) is generally
cellular in structure and this storage type heat exchanger
is also referred to as a regenerative heat exchanger, or
simply as a regenerator.

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 Classification according to Transfer Processes

c. Fluidized-Bed Heat Exchangers

• In a fluidized-bed heat exchanger, one side
of a two-fluid exchanger is immersed in a
bed of finely divided solid material, such as a
tube bundle immersed in a bed of sand or
coal particles, as shown in Fig. below.
• If the upward fluid velocity is high, the solid
particles will be carried away with the fluid.
• At a ‘‘proper’’ value of the fluid velocity, the
upward drag force is slightly higher than the
weight of the bed particles.
• As a result, the solid particles will float with
an increase in bed volume, and the bed
behaves as a liquid. This characteristic of the
bed is referred to as a fluidized condition.
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 Classification According to Transfer Processes

• Under this condition, the fluid pressure drop through the bed
remains almost constant, independent of the flow rate, and a
strong mixing of the solid particles occurs.
• This results in a uniform temperature for the total bed (gas and
particles) with an apparent thermal conductivity of the solid
particles as infinity.
• Very high heat transfer coefficients are achieved on the
fluidized side compared to particle-free or dilute-phase particle
gas flows.
• Chemical reaction is common on the fluidized side in many
process applications, and combustion takes place in coal
combustion fluidized beds.
• The common applications of the fluidized-bed heat exchanger
are drying, mixing, adsorption, reactor engineering, coal
combustion, and waste heat recovery.
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 Classification According to Surface Compactness

2. SURFACE COMPACTNESS
• Compact heat exchangers are characterized by a large
heat transfer surface area per unit volume of the
exchanger.
• This resulting in reduced space, weight, support structure
and footprint, energy requirements and cost, as well as
improved process design and plant layout and processing
conditions, together with low fluid inventory.
• Compact heat exchanger is further catagorized as
 compact and
cross flow compact heat exchanger.

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 Classification According to Surface
Compactness
i. Compact heat exchange
• It has a large heat transfer surface area per unit volume (e.g.,
car radiator).
• A heat exchanger that incorporates a heat transfer surface
having a surface area density,  greater than about 700m2/m3
is classified as being compactn heat exchanger.
• Its applications are mostly in automobile, marine, air craft, aero
space and cryogenic applications.
• Fins are used to increase the heat transfer area.

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 Classification According to Surface Compactness

ii. Cross-flow
In compact cross heat exchangers, the two fluids usually
move perpendicular to each other. The cross-flow is further
classified as unmixed and mixed flow.

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
3. CONSTRUCTION FEATURES
• Heat exchangers are frequently characterized by construction
features.
• Four major construction types are tubular, plate-type, extended
surface, and regenerative exchangers.

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
i. Tubular Heat Exchangers
• These exchangers are generally built of circular tubes,
although elliptical, rectangular, or round/flat twisted tubes
have also been used in some applications.
• There is considerable flexibility in the design because the
core geometry can be varied easily by changing the tube
diameter, length, and arrangement.
• Tubular exchangers can be designed for high pressures
relative to the environment and high-pressure differences
between the fluids.
• Wide range of operating pressures and temperature,
ease of manufacturing, low cost.

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
• Tubular exchangers are used primarily for liquid-to-liquid
and liquid-to-phase change (condensing or evaporating)
heat transfer applications.
• They are used for gas-to-liquid and gas-to-gas heat
transfer applications primarily when the operating
temperature and/or pressure is very high or fouling is a
severe problem at least on one fluid side.
• It is further classified as
Double pipe heat exchanger
Shell and tube heat exchanger
Spiral type heat exchanger

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
a. Double pipe heat exchanger
• This exchanger usually consists of two concentric pipes. One
fluid flows in the inner pipe and the other fluid flows in the
annulus between pipes.
• This is perhaps the simplest heat exchanger. There is no
problem in the flow distribution, and cleaning is done very easily
by disassembly.
• This configuration is also suitable where one or both of the
fluids is at very high pressure,

Double-pipe exchangers are generally used

for small-capacity applications where the total
heat transfer surface area required is 50m2 or
less because it is expensive on a cost per unit
surface area basis.

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
b. Shell-and-Tube Exchangers.
• This exchanger, is generally built of a
bundle of round tubes mounted in a
cylindrical shell with the tube axis
parallel to that of the shell.
• One fluid flows inside the tubes, the
other flows across and along the
tubes.
• The major components of this
exchanger are tubes (or tube bundle),
shell, frontend head, rear-end head,
baffles, and tubesheets.

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
• A variety of different internal constructions are used in
shell-and-tube exchangers, depending on
 the desired heat transfer and pressure drop
performance and
 the methods employed to reduce thermal stresses,
 to prevent leakages,
 to provide for ease of cleaning,
 to control operating pressures and temperatures,
 to control corrosion,
 to accommodate highly asymmetric flows, and so on.

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
c. Spiral Tube Heat Exchangers.
• These consist of one or more spirally wound coils fitted in a
shell.
• Heat transfer rate associated with a spiral tube is higher than
that for a straight tube.
• In addition, a considerable amount of surface can be
accommodated in a given space by spiraling.
• Thermal expansion is no problem, but cleaning is almost
impossible.

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
ii. Plate Heat Exchangers
• Plate-type heat exchangers are usually
built of thin plates (all prime surface).
• The plates are either smooth or have
some form of corrugation, and they are
either flat or wound in an exchanger.
• The hot and cold fluids flow in alternate
passages and allows to increase the
size by simply mounting more plates
• Generally, these exchangers cannot
accommodate very high pressures,
temperatures, or pressure and
temperature differences.
• Moderate temperature and pressures

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
iii. Extended Surface Heat Exchangers
• The tubular and plate-type exchangers described previously
are all prime surface heat exchangers, except for a shell-and-
tube exchanger with low finned tubing.
• Their heat exchanger effectiveness is usually 60% or below,
and the heat transfer surface area density is usually less
than 700m2/m3.
• In some applications, much higher (up to about 98%)
exchanger effectiveness is essential, and the box volume
and mass are limited so that a much more compact surface
is mandated.
• This results in a large heat transfer surface area
requirement.

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
• One of the most common methods to
increase the surface area and
exchanger compactness is to add the
extended surface (fins) and use fins
with the fin density as high as possible
on one or both fluid sides, depending on
the design requirement.
• Addition of fins can increase the
surface area by 5 to 12 times the
primary surface area in general,
depending on the design.
• The resulting exchanger is referred to
as an extended surface exchanger.

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
• Fins provide both an increased area and increased heat
transfer coefficient.
• The are two most common types of extended surface heat
exchangers geometries.
 Plate-fin and
tube-fin

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 Classification According to Construction
Features
a. Plate-Fin Heat Exchanger
• The compactness factor is improved
by the fins.
• Generally used for gas to gas
applications.
• Low pressure applications only (< 10
bar)
b. Tube-Fin Heat Exchangers
• High pressure on tube side can be
accommodated.
• Gas turbine, nuclear, fuel cell,
automobile, airplane, heat pump,
refrigeration, air conditioning,
electronics, cryogenics etc.

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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
4. By Flow Arrangement
• Common flow arrangements of the fluids in a heat exchanger
are classified as parallel flow, counter flow and cross flow
and mulipass flow.
• The choice of a particular flow arrangement is dependent on:
 the required exchanger effectiveness,
available pressure drops,
minimum and maximum velocities allowed,
fluid flow paths,
packaging envelope,
allowable thermal stresses,
temperature levels,
piping and plumbing considerations, and
 other design criteria.
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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
i. Parallel flow Exchanger.
• In a parallelflow (also referred to as
cocurrent flow) heat exchanger, the hot
and cold fluid streams enter together
at the same end of the heat exchanger
and flow parallel to each other in the
same direction, and leave together at
the other end.

• This arrangement has the lowest exchanger effectiveness as

compared to other type of flow arrangments provided that other
conditions remained the same.
• In this exchanger, a large temperature difference between inlet
temperatures of hot and cold fluids exists at the inlet side, which
may induce high thermal stresses in the wall at the inlet.
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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
ii. Counterflow Exchanger
• In a counterflow or countercurrent
exchanger, the two fluids flow parallel to
each other but in opposite directions
within the core.
• The counterflow arrangement is
thermodynamically superior to any other
flow arrangement.
• It is the most efficient flow arrangement, producing the highest
temperature change in each fluid compared to any other two-fluid
flow arrangements of the same condition.
• Moreover, the maximum temperature difference across the
exchanger wall thickness either at the hot- or cold-fluid end is the
lowest, and produce minimum thermal stresses in the wall for an
equivalent performance compared to any other flow arrangements.
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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
iii. Crossflow Exchanger.
• In this type of exchanger, the two fluids flow in
directions normal to each other.
• Thermodynamically, the effectiveness for the
crossflow exchanger falls in between that for the
counterflow and parallelflow arrangements.

• In a crossflow arrangement, mixing of either fluid stream may

or may not occur, depending on the design.
• A fluid stream is considered unmixed when it passes through
individual flow channels or tubes with no fluid mixing between
adjacent flow channels.
• A fluid stream is considered completely mixed when no
temperature gradient exists in the transverse plane, either within
one tube or within the transverse tube row within the exchanger.
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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
iv. Mulipass flow
• When the design of a heat exchanger required either an
extreme length, significantly low fluid velocities, or a low
effectiveness , a multipass heat exchanger or several single-
pass exchangers in series, or a combination of both,is
employed.
• One of the major advantages of proper multipassing is to
increase the exchanger overall effectiveness over the
individual pass effectivenesses, but with increased pressure
drop on the multipass side.
• If the overall direction of the two fluids is chosen as
counterflow, the exchanger overall effectiveness approaches
that of a pure counterflow exchanger as the number of passes
increases.
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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
• The multipass arrangements are classified as:
Shell and tube heat exchanger
Multipass cross flow
Multi pass plate heat exchanger

a. Shell and tube heat exchanger

• When the number of tube passes is greater than one, the shell-
and-tube exchangers represent a multipass exchanger.
It is the most common type of heat exchanger in industrial
applications.
• They contain a large number of tubes packed in a shell with their
axes parallel to that of the shell.

Fig: Multipass sdhell and

tube heat exchanger
.

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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
• Heat transfer takes place as
one fluid flows inside the tubes
while the other fluid flows
outside the tubes through the
shell.
• Shell-and-tube heat exchangers
are further classified according
to the number of shell and tube
passes involved as
 one shell and two or a multiple of
two tube passes and
 two shell and four or a ultiple of four
tube passes.

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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
b. Multipass Crossflow Exchangers.
• This arrangement is the most common for extended surface
exchangers; two or more passes are put in series, with each
pass usually having crossflow.
• The flow arrangements could be categorized as
a. a series coupling of n asses or over-and-under passes,
b. a parallel coupling of n passes or side-by-side passes,
c. a combination of both or a compound arrangement.

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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
c. Multipass Plate Exchanger.
In a plate exchanger, although a single-pass counterflow
arrangement is common, there exist a large number of
feasible multipass flow arrangements, depending on the
gasketing around the ports in the plates.
Essentially, these are combinations of parallel flow and
counter flow arrangements with heat transfer taking place in
adjacent channels.

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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
• One of the common ways of classifying two-fluid plate
exchangers is on the basis of the number of passes on
each fluid side.
• Possible arrangements are 1 pass – 1 pass, 2 pass – 1
pass, and so on, multipass arrangements.
• Usually, the 1 pass – 1 pass plate exchanger has looped
patterns, the m pass – n pass plate exchanger has the
complex flow arrangement, and the n pass – n pass plate
exchanger has the series flow arrangement.

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 Classification According to Flow
Arrangement
• Looped patterns are most commonly used.
• The flow arrangement represents pure counter flow
(although pure parallel flow is also possible) in a single
pass.
• It is used for large flow rates but relatively small
temperature drops or rises (ΔT) on each fluid side.

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 Summary
• What is heat exchanger and its application and areas of
application?
1. The objective may be to recover or reject heat, or
sterilize, pasteurize, fractionate, distill, concentrate,
crystallize, or control a process fluid.
2. Classification of heat exchangers by
By Heat Transfer Process (Direct , in direct),
By Compactness (Compact heat exchanger, Cross flow),
 By Construction Type (Tubular Heat Exchangers, Plate
Heat Exchangers, Extended Surface Heat Exchangers),
By Flow Arrangement (Parallel-flow, Counter-flow, Cross-
flow)

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 End of Topic

4/17/2023 Dr.Sintayehu Mekuria Hailegiorgis and Mr. Ibsa Neme