Proceedings of the 16th International Heat Transfer Conference, IHTC-16

August 10-15, 2018, Beijing, China

IHTC16-23852

EFFECTS OF SEA-WATER FOULING ON A PLATE-FRAME HEAT

EXCHANGER FOR UTILIZATION OF WASTE HEAT FROM POWER
PLANT

Wonkeun Baik1, Jaehyok Heo2, Rin Yun1*

1
Hanbat National University 125 Dongseodaero, Yuseonggu, Daejeon 305-719, Republic of Korea
2
New and Renewable Energy Research Division, Korea Institute of Energy Research, Dajeon 34129, Korea

ABSTRACT

Gasket type plate heat exchanger was tested under fouling condition from seawater. Overall heat transfer
coefficient, heat transfer coefficient, and pressure drop of the heat exchanger were obtained. Operational
temperatures for seawater side was 10 ℃, 20 ℃ and 30 ℃ and water side temperature was 5 ℃, 15 ℃ and
25 ℃. The overall heat transfer coefficients increased by 12% with increase of the seawater flow rate at the
same temperature range, and increased from 7.5% to 14.5% with increase of the temperature on both sides under
the same flow conditions. The heat transfer coefficient for seawater side increased by 7% - 19% with increase of
seawater flow rate under the same temperature condition. The pressure drop was less than 3 kPa depending on
the temperature, but increased by 34 kPa with increase of the flow rate.

KEY WORDS: Seawater, Fouling, Plate Heat exchanger, Overall heat transfer coefficient, Heat transfer coefficient,
Pressure drop

1. INTRODUCTION

Utilization of the effluent from a power plant have gained a lot of attention. However, in South Korea,
only a small portion was utilized for agriculture and cultivation, and most are released to the sea. The
available energy for the heated effluent is estimated by 541006 kWh per year. Industrial utilization of the
heat energy from the effluent, and the development of relevant technology for more efficient and reliable
utilization is necessary. The most important technology for designing of the heat recovery system from the
effluent is to design the system by considering fouling characteristics for a heat exchanger. Generally, the
development of fouling due to the deposition and accumulation of undesirable materials such as algae, insoluble
salts on the surface of heat exchangers tend to affect the operational efficiency of carefully designed heat
exchangers.

Kang et al. [1] analyzed the effects of energy cost savings by installing heating and cooling systems that
use the heated effluent of the thermal power plant as a heat source in a subtropical plant growing greenhouse.
They performed experiments with focus on the heating system for 5 months from October to February. Ryou
et al. [2] designed a heat pump system for the heating of the greenhouse by using waste heat discharged from
the thermal power plant in the form of heated effluent as heat source for the heat pump. Genic et al. [3]
considered the relationship between the fouling resistance coefficient and the flow rate of a plate heat
exchanger under heating conditions. The experimental data were compared with initial data and measured
data by the same heat exchanger after one year using water without accelerated conditions. Research without
acceleration conditions is similar to actual conditions, but has the disadvantage that measurement time is
long. Therefore, accelerated condition fouling studies using calcium carbonate solution, which shortens the
experimental measurement time and greatly influence the fouling formation, have been actively studied.

*Corresponding Author: yunrin@hanbat.ac.kr

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Chae et al. [4] considered the performance of the heat exchanger from the fouling caused by circulating the
calcium carbonate, which is the main pollutant in the dual pipe heat exchanger using water. The overall heat
transfer coefficient decreased with the increase of contamination concentration. In the case of contamination
with calcium carbonate, crystalline fouling was encountered which is difficult to remove at high temperature.
As concentration of calcium carbonate increases, crystal pollution increases and cleaning ability decreases.
Paakkonen et al [5] observed that fouling has a large effect on the water temperature. Therefore, information
on fouling formation in a plate heat exchanger with heating and heated effluent supply conditions is needed.
Yang et al. [6] considered seawater fouling tests on copper and stainless steel rods and investigated the
effects of surface temperature and velocity.

Until now, researches on performance degradation from a long term usage of gasket type plate heat
exchanger with heated seawater effluent are insufficient. And there are very few researches on the fouling
mechanism from sea water and the related models. In this study, we investigated the performance
degradation of a plate type heat exchanger from seawater fouling, caused by direct circulation of effluent
from a power plant. The overall heat coefficient, heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of the heat
exchanger with flow rate and temperature was obtained under seawater fouling condition.

2. EXPERIMENTS

The plate heat exchanger used in the experiment was operated for 3 months by circulating effluent from the
power generation of Jeju thermal power plant in the temperature range of 15 ~ 25 ℃ and flow rate of 20 ~ 30
LPM for 18 hours in each day. The plate heat exchanger installed in the field was brought to the laboratory
and the performance of the heat exchanger was evaluated by using water on the sea water side and brine on
the water side. Fig. 1 shows an experimental schematic diagram for the heat exchanger performance test. The
test heat exchanger, differential pressure transducer, and two mass flowmeters for measuring the flow rate of
the working fluid were installed. The working fluid used in the experiments was water on the sea water side
and brine on the fresh water side of the heat exchanger. In the inlet and outlet of the heat exchanger, T type
probe thermocouples were installed to measure the temperature of the water and brine. All the thermocouples
used in this experiment were uniformly calibrated within ± 0.1℃ before the experiment. A differential
pressure transducer with an accuracy of 0.05% at 100kPa was installed on the seawater side. The data logger
are used to obtain temperature and differential pressure data during the experiment. The temperature and
flow rate of water and brine were controlled by using two different chillers. Fig. 2 shows the specifications
of the plate heat exchanger used in the experiment.

Fig. 1 Schematic diagram for the heat exchanger performance test for a thermal power plant

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Fig. 2 Specifications of the plate heat exchanger used in the experiment

Table 1 Heat exchanger experimental under fouling conditions

Seawater side Water side Seawater side Water side
Case
temperature (℃) temperature (℃) flow rate (LPM) flow rate (LPM)
1 10 5 20 20
2 10 5 20 30
3 10 5 30 30
4 20 15 20 20
5 20 15 20 30
6 20 15 30 30
7 30 25 20 20
8 30 25 20 30
9 30 25 30 30

Table 1 shows the present experimental conditions. Since the field test was conducted at low flow rate in
Jeju Island, this laboratory experiment was carried out with low flow rate of 20LPM ~ 30LPM in both sides.
On the sea water side, the pressure drop was measured through a differential pressure transducer. For each
experiment under different conditions, the temperature and differential pressure data were recorded through
the data logger, and collected when the temperature reached steady state.

2.1 Data processing and accuracy

In the data processing, the heat transfer rate, heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of the sea water side
and the water side were calculated. The heat transfer rate was calculated by the mass flow rate and the
temperature difference between inlet and outlet for the sea water side and for the water side using Eq. (1).
Fig. 3 shows the heat transfer rate between sea water side and water side within ± 5%. The overall heat
transfer coefficient (U) was determined by using Eq. (2). The actual area of the present plate heat exchanger
was determined by the detail specifications shown in Fig. 2. The heat transfer coefficient was estimated by
applying Eq. (3).

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Fig. 3 Heat transfer rate between sea water side and water side

Q  m  c p  (Tseawater ,i  Tseawater ,e ) (1)

Q  U  A  LMTD (2)

U  1/ (1/ hwater  side  1/ hseawater  side  t / k ) (3)

3. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Figs. 4 to 6 show the overall heat transfer coefficient, U of the seawater side for each flow rate. The rate of
increase of the U value with change of flow rate is about 12 % at the seawater side at 10 ℃ and the water
side at 5 ℃. The rate of increase of the U value corresponding to the flow rate is about 14 % at the sea water
side at 20 ℃ and the water side at 15 ℃. The rate of increase of the U value is about 11 % with change of
the flow rate at 30 ℃ on the sea water side and 25 ℃ on the water side. In the present experiment, the
average U value under fouling condition was found to be higher than that without fouling condition [7] by
20.8% in seawater side. The reason for the increase in U value can be attributed to the increase in flow rate
and subsequent increase in the heat capacity. As the temperature of seawater and water increases, the U value
increases and the rate of increase is 7.5% - 14.5%. At the same flow rate, increasing the temperature
increases the inlet and outlet temperature difference on the sea side resulting in a decrease log mean
temperature difference (LMTD). As a result, the heat transfer rate obtained from Eq. (1) increases.

Variation of heat transfer coefficient, h with seawater side flow rate are shown in Figs. 7 to 9. Increasing the
flow rate had significant effect on the heat transfer coefficient under test temperature conditions. In the
experiment, heat transfer coefficient at seawater side temperature of 10 ℃ and the water side temperature of
5 ℃ had an increase rate of 4% from flow rate conditions of 20-20 to 20-30 LPM, and 22.5% from 20 - 30
and 30 – 30 LPM. The flow conditions of 30 – 30 LPM showed a significant increase in h value due to the
increase of the flow on the seawater side than in 20 - 20 and 20 - 30 LPM flow conditions. The increase rate
of heat transfer coefficient at seawater side temperature of 20 ℃ and the water side temperature of 15 ℃ was
about 11% from 20 - 20 and 20 - 30 and 19% from 20-30 and 30-30. The increase rate of heat transfer
coefficient at seawater side temperature of 30 ℃ and the water side temperature of 25 ℃ was 6% from 20 -
20 to 20 – 30 LPM while the increase rate between 20 - 30 and 30 - 30 was 17.7%. As the temperature of
seawater and water side increased under the same flow rate conditions, h increased but the change of h value
with temperature varied from 1.9% to 14.5% depending on flow conditions.

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Figs. 10 to 12 show the pressure drop, △P at the seawater side for each flow rate. The rate of increase of △P
corresponding to increasing flow rate from 20 - 20 and 20 - 30 LPM was about 2 kPa at the temperature
conditions of 10 ℃ seawater side and 5 ℃ water side. However, in the case of 30-30 LPM flow conditions
where the flow rate on the seawater was increased from 20 to 30 LPM, the pressure drop showed a
significant increase of about 34 kPa. In addition, the △P at the sea water side at 20 ℃ and the water side at
15 ℃ increased by 3 kP when the flow rate conditions was increased from 20 - 20 to 20 - 30 LPM, but
increased by 34 kPa from 20 - 30 to 30 - 30 LPM. The △P according to the flow rates at 30 ℃ and 25 ℃ on
the sea water side were 34 kPa when flow rate changed from 20 - 30 to 30 - 30. As the temperature of sea
water and water increases at the same flow rate, △P is almost less than 3kPa, which means that △P does not
show much difference with temperature change. In case of flow rate of average of △P in test condition was
higher than former test condition, and the percentage is 450 %.

Fig. 4 Variation of U of the seawater side for each flow rate at seawater side at 10 ℃ and water side at 5 ℃

Fig. 5 Variation of U of the seawater side for each flow rate at seawater side at 20 ℃ and water side at 15 ℃

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Fig. 6 Variation of U of the seawater side for each flow rate at seawater side at 30 ℃ and water side at 25 ℃

Fig. 7 Variation of h of the seawater side for each flow rate at seawater side at 10 ℃ and water side at 5 ℃

Fig. 8 Variation of h of the seawater side for each flow rate at seawater side at 20 ℃ and water side at 15 ℃

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Fig. 9 Variation of h of the seawater side for each flow rate at seawater side at 30 ℃ and water side at 25 ℃

Fig. 10 Variation of △P of the seawater side for each flow rate at seawater side at 10 ℃ and water side at 5 ℃

Fig. 11 Variation of △P of the seawater side for each flow rate at seawater side at 20 ℃ and water side at
15 ℃

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Fig. 12 Variation of △P of the seawater side for each flow rate at seawater side at 30 ℃ and water side at
25 ℃

4. CONCLUSION

In this study, experiments were conducted with seawater - water gasket type heat exchanger with fouling which
developed naturally in seawater. At the same temperature conditions, increasing flow rate at seawater side
increases the heat capacity on the seawater side resulting in increasing overall heat transfer coefficient, U. At the
same flow rate conditions, increasing the temperature increases the inlet and outlet temperature difference at the
seawater side resulting in decreasing log mean temperature difference (LMTD). As the result, overall heat
coefficient increases. At the same flow rate conditions, increasing seawater and water side's temperature, heat
transfer coefficient, h increases. At the same temperature conditions, increasing flow rate at seawater side
increases the heat transfer coefficient. The h value increases more when the seawater side flow rate increased
than when the seawater side flow rate was the same. As the temperature of sea water and water increases at the
same flow rate, pressure drop, △P is almost same, which means that △P does not show much difference with
temperature change.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This research was jointly supported by the Basic Research Program through the National Research
Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (NRF-
2016R1D1A1B02010075), and the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (Grant
No. 20163010150010).

NOMENCLATURE

m mass flow rate (kg/s)

cp specific heat (J/kg K)
t plate thickness (m)
k thermal conductivity (W/m K)
U Overall heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K)
LMTD Log Mean Temperature Difference (K)
h heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K)
△P Pressure drop (kPa)

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