Advantages of U tube heat exchanger

U tube heat exchanger is characterized by its simple structure, good tightness, convenient maintenance and cleaning, low cost, good thermal compensation performance and strong pressure bearing capacity. The U-tube heat exchanger has the largest heat exchange area under the same diameter. The main structure of U-shaped tube heat exchanger includes tube box, cylinder, head, heat exchange tube, nozzles, baffle, anti-shock plate and guide tube, anti-short circuit structure, support and other accessories of the shell and tube side, is the most commonly used in shell and tube heat exchanger.

Heat exchange tube

Heat exchange tubes used for heat transfer usually use primary cold-drawn heat exchange tubes and ordinary cold-drawn heat exchange tubes. The former is suitable for heat transfer and vibration occasions without phase change, and the latter is suitable for reboiling, condensing heat transfer and vibration-free general occasions. The heat exchanger pipe shall be able to withstand certain temperature differences, stress and corrosion resistance. The length of the heat exchange tube is generally 1.0m, 1.5m, 2.0m, 2.5m, 3.0m, 4.5m, 6.0m, 7.5m, 9.0m, 12.0m. The material of the pipe can be carbon steel, stainless steel, aluminum, copper, brass and copper-nickel alloy, nickel, graphite, glass and other special materials, also often used composite pipe. In order to expand the area of effective heat transfer tube at the same time maximize the tube side heat transfer coefficient, heat exchange tube processing or in tube inserted into the internal and external surfaces of the disturbed flow components, producing fluid turbulence the inside and outside at the same time, commonly used such as rough surface tubes, finned tube, the supporting pipe, inside the plug-in type, etc.

Tube sheet

Tube sheet is one of the most important parts of shell – tube heat exchanger. The tube plate is the barrier between the shell side and the pipe side. When the heat exchange medium has no corrosion or slight corrosion, it is generally made of low carbon steel, low alloy steel or stainless steel. The connection form of tube-sheet and shell is divided into non-detachable and detachable types. The former is the connection between tube-sheet and shell in the fixed tube-sheet heat exchanger. The latter, such as U-shaped tube type, floating head type and stuffing box type and sliding tube plate type heat exchanger tube plate and shell connection. For removable connections, the tube plate itself is usually not in direct contact with the shell, but the flange is connected to the shell indirectly or is clamped by two flanges on the shell and the tube box.

Tube box

Most of the shell tube heat exchangers with larger shell diameters adopt tube and box structures. The tube box is located at both ends of the heat exchanger, which evenly distributes the fluid from the pipe to the heat exchanger tubes and gathers the fluid in the tubes together to send out the heat exchanger. In a multi-pipe shell, the casing can also change the flow direction. The structure of the tube box is mainly determined by whether the heat exchanger needs to be cleaned or whether the tube bundle needs to be divided.

Shell and U-tube heat exchanger has become the most commonly used structure type of heat exchanger in the field of petrochemical industry due to many advantages, but it also has some disadvantages such as pipe cleaning is more difficult, the utilization rate of tube plate is low due to the limitation of curvature radius of bend pipe; The distance between the innermost tubes of the tube bundle is large, the shell process is easy to short circuit, and the scrap rate is high. It is suitable for large temperature difference between pipe and shell wall or shell side where medium is easy to scale and needs cleaning, and is not suitable for using floating and fixed tube plate type occasions, especially suitable for clean and not easy to scale under high temperature, high pressure, corrosive medium.