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ME204

Heat Transfer
Unit – 5: Heat Exchangers

Dr. Rajesh Choudhary

Contents
• Basic types of heat exchangers,
• Fouling factors,
• LMTD,
• Effectiveness – NTU methods of design.

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Introduction
• A heat exchanger 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
• In heat exchangers, there are usually no external heat and work interactions.
• Some typical examples of heat exchanger applications are:
(i) Thermal power plants (boilers, superheater, steam condensers, etc.)
(ii) Refrigeration and air-conditioning (evaporators, condensers, coolers)
(iii) Automobile industry (radiators, all engine cooling and fuel cooling arrangements)
(iv) Chemical process industry (variety of heat exchangers between different types of fluids, in cumbustors and
reactors)
(v) Cryogenic industry (condenser–reboilers used in distillation columns, evaporators to produce gas from
cryogenic liquids, etc.) 3

Basic Classification… Heat Exchange Process

• Direct Contact HX: Heat transfer between fluids takes place by direct mixing of fluids.
• Indirect Contact HX: Heat transfer between fluids takes place through a separating wall or into and
out of a wall in a transient manner.
1. Direct transfer type or Recuperators: The fluids are separated by a heat transfer surface, and ideally they do not mix
or leak.
2. Indirect transfer type or Regenerator: exchangers in which there is intermittent heat exchange between the hot and
cold fluids—via thermal energy storage and release through the exchanger surface or matrix.

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Basic Classification… Heat Exchange Process

Regenerative HX
• Static type: Matrix remain stationary and alternative flow
• Dynamic type: Matrix rotates and continuous flow

Basic Classification… Relative Direction of Fluids

• Parallel Flow HX
• Counter Flow HX Used for sensible heating or cooling of process
fluids in applications of small heat transfer areas of
up to 50 m2

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Basic Classification… Relative Direction of Fluids

• Cross Flow HX
• Both fluids unmixed
• One fluid mixed, one fluid unmixed

Basic Classification… Constructional Features

Basically, there are three types:
(a) concentric tubes type
(b) shell and tube type, and
(c) compact heat exchangers.

In concentric tubes type of heat exchanger, one tube is located inside

another; one fluid flows through the inside tube and the other fluid flows
in the annular space between the tubes.

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Basic Classification… Constructional Features

Shell & Tube HX:
• Shell and tube type of heat exchanger is very popular in industry
because of its reliability and high heat transfer effectiveness.
• One of the fluids flows within a bundle of tubes placed within a shell.
And, the other fluid flows through the shell over the surfaces of the
tubes.
• Suitable baffles are provided within the shell to make the shell fluid
change directions and provide good turbulence, so that heat transfer
coefficient is increased.

Basic Classification… Constructional Features

Compact HX
• The ratio of the heat transfer surface area of a heat exchanger to its volume is called the area
density (β).
• A heat exchanger with β > 700 m2/m3 for gas stream and β > 400 m2/m3 for liquid stream is
classified as being compact.
• These devices have dense arrays of finned tubes or plates and are typically used when at least one
of the fluids is a gas, and is hence characterized by a small convection coefficient.
• The tubes may be flat or circular, as in Figures a and b, c, respectively, and the fins may be plate
or circular.

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Basic Classification… Constructional Features

Compact HX
• Parallel-plate heat exchangers may be finned or corrugated and may be used in single-pass
(Figure d) or multi-pass (Figure e) modes of operation.
• Thin plates or corrugated fins are used to increase the area density or surfaces area.
• Flow passages associated with compact heat exchangers are typically small (Dh = 5 mm), and the
flow is usually laminar.
• Examples
• Car radiators (β ≈ 1000 m2/m3 ),
• Glass ceramic gas turbine heat exchangers (β ≈ 6000 m2/m3 ),
• Regenerator of a Stirling engine (β ≈ 15,000 m2/m3 ), and
• Human lung (β ≈ 20,000 m2/m3 ).

• Compact heat exchangers enable us to achieve high heat transfer rates between two fluids in a
small volume, and they are commonly used in applications with strict limitations on the weight
and volume of heat exchangers.
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Basic Classification… Constructional Features

Plate HX

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Basic Classification… State of Fluid

• If no phase change occurs in any of the fluids in the exchanger, it is sometimes
referred to as a Sensible Heat Exchanger.

Latent Heat Exchanger

• Condenser:
• A heat exchanger may be used to condense a fluid in which case the condensing
fluid will be at a constant temperature throughout the length of the heat exchanger
• While, the other (cold) fluid will increase in temperature as it passes through the
heat exchanger, absorbing the latent heat of condensation released by the
condensing fluid.
• Evaporator:
• If one of the fluids evaporates in a heat exchanger, temperature of this fluid will
remain constant throughout the length of heat exchanger,
• Whereas the temperature of the other fluid, which supplies the latent heat of
evaporation to the evaporating fluid, goes on decreasing along the length of the heat
exchanger. 13

Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient

 Overall heat transfer coefficients generally represent a conjugate heat transfer process between
two fluids through a wall.
 When heat is flowing through a composite material, the thermal resistance offered by different
layers of the material which can be due to heat conduction or convection is referred to as the
overall heat transfer coefficient.
 The overall heat transfer coefficient of the wall is taken to be a sum of the convective heat transfer
coefficient and the conductive heat transfer coefficient.
 It is of great interest to determine the individual heat transfer coefficient from the overall heat
transfer coefficient.

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Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient

𝟏 𝐥𝐧 𝑫𝒐 /𝑫𝒊 𝟏
𝑹 = 𝑹𝒕𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒍 = 𝑹𝒊 + 𝑹𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒍 + 𝑹𝒐 = + +
𝒉𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝟐𝝅𝒌𝑳 𝒉𝒐 𝑨𝒐
In the analysis of heat exchangers, it is convenient to combine
all the thermal resistances in the path of heat flow from the hot
fluid to the cold one into a single resistance R, and to express
the rate of heat transfer between the two fluids as
∆𝑻
𝑸̇ = = 𝑼𝑨∆𝑻 = 𝑼𝒊 𝑨𝒊 ∆𝑻 = 𝑼𝒐 𝑨𝒐 ∆𝑻
𝑹
U = Overall heat transfer coefficient
𝟏 𝟏 𝟏 𝟏 𝒍𝒏 𝑫𝒐 /𝑫𝒊 𝟏
= = =𝑹= + +
𝑼𝑨𝒔 𝑼𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝑼𝒐 𝑨𝒐 𝒉𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝟐𝝅𝒌𝑳 𝒉𝒐 𝑨𝒐
𝑈 𝐴 = 𝑈 𝐴 , but 𝑈 ≠ 𝑈 unless 𝐴 = 𝐴 .

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Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient

𝟏 𝟏 𝟏 𝟏 𝒍𝒏 𝑫𝒐 /𝑫𝒊 𝟏
= = =𝑹= + +
𝑼𝑨𝒔 𝑼𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝑼𝒐 𝑨𝒐 𝒉𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝟐𝝅𝒌𝑳 𝒉𝒐 𝑨𝒐
• When the wall thickness of the tube is small and the thermal conductivity of the tube material is high, as is
usually the case, the thermal resistance of the tube wall is negligible (𝑹𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒍 ≈ 𝟎) and the inner and outer
surfaces of the tube are almost identical (𝑨𝒊 ≈ 𝑨𝒐 ≈ 𝑨𝒔 ).
𝟏 𝟏 𝟏
≈ +
𝑼 𝒉𝒊 𝒉𝒐
Where, 𝑼 ≈ 𝑼𝒊 ≈ 𝑼𝒐 .
• The overall heat transfer coefficient U is dominated by the smaller convection coefficient, since the inverse
of a large number is small. When one of the convection coefficients is much smaller than the other
𝒉𝒊 ≪ 𝒉𝒐
𝟏 𝟏
≫
𝒉𝒊 𝒉𝒐
𝑼 ≈ 𝒉𝒊
• Therefore, the smaller heat transfer coefficient creates a bottleneck on the path of heat flow and seriously
impedes heat transfer. This situation arises frequently when one of the fluids is a gas and the other is a16liquid.

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Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient

Based on air-side surface

area
Based on water or steam-
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side surface area

Fouling
The net effect of accumulations of deposits on heat transfer is
represented by a fouling factor Rf , which is a measure of the
thermal resistance introduced by fouling.
• Precipitation
• Corrosion
• Chemical Fouling
• Biological Fouling

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Fouling

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Fouling

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Fouling
• The fouling factor is obviously zero for a new heat exchanger
and increases with time as the solid deposits build up on the heat
exchanger surface.
• The fouling factor depends on the operating temperature and the
velocity of the fluids, as well as the length of service.
• Fouling increases with increasing temperature and decreasing
velocity.
𝟏 𝟏 𝟏 𝟏 𝒍𝒏 𝑫𝒐 /𝑫𝒊 𝟏
= = =𝑹= + +
𝑼𝑨𝒔 𝑼𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝑼𝒐 𝑨𝒐 𝒉𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝟐𝝅𝒌𝑳 𝒉𝒐 𝑨𝒐

𝟏 𝟏 𝟏 𝟏 𝑹𝒇,𝒊 𝒍𝒏 𝑫𝒐 /𝑫𝒊 𝑹𝒇,𝒐 𝟏

= = =𝑹= + + + +
𝑼𝑨𝒔 𝑼𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝑼𝒐 𝑨𝒐 𝒉𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝟐𝝅𝒌𝑳 𝑨𝒐 𝒉𝒐 𝑨𝒐

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Analysis of Heat Exchanger

An engineer is to select a heat exchanger that will achieve a specified temperature change in a fluid stream of
known mass flow rate, or to predict the outlet temperatures of the hot and cold fluid streams in a specified
heat exchanger

1. Log-Mean Temperature Difference (LMTD) Method

2. Effectiveness-Number of Transfer Units (𝜺 − 𝑵𝑻𝑼) Method

Assumptions
• Steady-flow devices
• Mass-flow rate and temperature and velocity of fluid at inlet and outlet remain constant
• KE and PE are negligible
• Specific heat remain constant in a specified range of temperature with little loss of accuracy.
• Negligible Axial heat conduction
• Outer surface of the heat exchanger is assumed to be perfectly insulated
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Analysis of Heat Exchanger

Derivation to estimate the Logarithmic Mean Temperature

Difference (LMTD) for parallel-flow and counter-flow heat
exchanger

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Analysis of Heat Exchanger… LMTD Approach

• The LMTD method is easy to use analysis when the inlet and the outlet temperatures of the
hot and cold fluids are known or can be determined from an energy balance.
• The LMTD method is very suitable for determining the size of a heat exchanger.
• With the LMTD method, the task is to select a heat exchanger that will meet the prescribed
heat transfer requirements.
• The procedure to be followed by the selection process is:
1. Select the type of heat exchanger suitable for the application.
2. Determine any unknown inlet or outlet temperature and the heat transfer rate using an energy
balance.
3. Calculate the log mean temperature difference Tlm and the correction factor F, if necessary.
4. Obtain (select or calculate) the value of the overall heat transfer coefficient U.
5. Calculate the heat transfer surface area As.
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Analysis of Heat Exchanger…ε-NTU Approach

• A second kind of problem encountered in heat exchanger analysis is the determination of the heat
transfer rate and the outlet temperatures of the hot and cold fluids for prescribed fluid mass flow
rates and inlet temperatures when the type and size of the heat exchanger are specified.
• The heat transfer surface area A of the heat exchanger in this case is known, but the outlet
temperatures are not.
• The task is to determine the heat transfer performance of a specified heat exchanger or to determine if
a heat exchanger available in storage will do the job.
• In an attempt to eliminate the iterations from the solution of such problems, Kays and London came up
with a method in 1955 called the effectiveness–NTU method, which greatly simplified heat
exchanger analysis.

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Analysis of Heat Exchanger…ε-NTU Approach

• This method is based on a dimensionless parameter called the heat transfer effectiveness ε, defined
as
𝑸̇ Actual heat transfer rate
𝜺= =
𝑸̇𝒎𝒂𝒙 Maximum possible heat transfer rate
• The actual heat transfer rate in a heat exchanger can be determined from an energy balance
𝑸̇ = 𝑪𝒄 𝑻𝒄,𝒐𝒖𝒕 − 𝑻𝒄,𝒊𝒏 = 𝑪𝒉 𝑻𝒉,𝒊𝒏 − 𝑻𝒉,𝒐𝒖𝒕
• To determine the maximum possible heat transfer rate in a heat exchanger, we first recognize that the
maximum temperature difference in a heat exchanger is the difference between the inlet temperatures
of the hot and cold fluids.
∆𝑻𝒎𝒂𝒙 = 𝑻𝒉,𝒊𝒏 − 𝑻𝒄,𝒊𝒏
• The heat transfer in a heat exchanger will reach its maximum value when (1) the cold fluid is heated to
the inlet temperature of the hot fluid or (2) the hot fluid is cooled to the inlet temperature of the cold
fluid.

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Analysis of Heat Exchanger…ε-NTU Approach

• When Cc ≠ Ch, the fluid with the smaller heat capacity rate will experience a larger
temperature change, and thus it will be the first to experience the maximum temperature, at
which point the heat transfer will come to a halt.
𝑸̇𝒎𝒂𝒙 = 𝑪𝒎𝒊𝒏 𝑻𝒉,𝒊𝒏 − 𝑻𝒄,𝒊𝒏
• Once the effectiveness of the heat exchanger is known, the actual heat transfer rate Q· can be
determined from
𝑄̇ = 𝜀𝑄̇ = 𝜀𝐶 𝑇 , −𝑇,
• The effectiveness of a heat exchanger depends on the geometry of the heat exchanger as well
as the flow arrangement.
• Therefore, different types of heat exchangers have different effectiveness relations.

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Analysis of Heat Exchanger

Derivation to estimate Effectiveness for parallel-flow and

counter-flow heat exchanger

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Analysis of Heat Exchanger…ε-NTU Approach

Parallel Flow Heat Exchanger
• Taking either Cc or Ch to be Cmin (both approaches give the same result), the relation above
can be expressed more conveniently as
𝑈𝐴 𝐶
1 − 𝑒𝑥𝑝. − 𝐶 1+𝐶 .
. .
ε=
𝐶 .
1+
𝐶 .
• Effectiveness relations of the heat exchangers typically involve the dimensionless group
𝑼𝑨𝒔
𝑪𝒎𝒊𝒏.
• This quantity is called the number of transfer units (NTU) and is expressed as
𝑈𝐴
= 𝑁𝑇𝑈
𝐶 .
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Analysis of Heat Exchanger…ε-NTU Approach

Parallel Flow Heat Exchanger
• For specified values of U and Cmin, the value of NTU is a measure of the heat transfer
surface area As.
• Thus, the larger the NTU, the larger the size of heat exchanger.
• In heat exchanger analysis, it is also convenient to define another dimensionless quantity
called the capacity ratio c as
𝑪𝒎𝒊𝒏.
𝑪=
𝑪𝒎𝒂𝒙.
𝑼𝑨𝒔 𝑪𝒎𝒊𝒏.
ε = 𝑓𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 , = 𝑓𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑵𝑻𝑼, 𝑪
𝑪𝒎𝒊𝒏. 𝑪𝒎𝒂𝒙.
• By substituting the NTU and C,
𝟏 − 𝒆𝒙𝒑. −𝑵𝑻𝑼 𝟏 + 𝑪
𝜺=
𝟏+𝑪
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Analysis of Heat Exchanger…ε-NTU Approach

Counter Flow Heat Exchanger
1 − 𝑒𝑥𝑝. −𝑁𝑇𝑈 1 − 𝐶
ε=
1 − 𝐶. 𝑒𝑥𝑝. −𝑁𝑇𝑈 1 − 𝐶

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Multi-Pass and Cross-Flow Heat Exchanger…Correction Factor

The correction factor is less than unity for a cross-flow and multi-pass shell-and-tube heat
exchanger.
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Multi-Pass and Cross-Flow Heat Exchanger…Correction Factor

• For a shell-and-tube heat exchanger, T and t represent the shell- and tube-side temperatures,
respectively .
• The value of P ranges from 0 to 1.
• The value of R, on the other hand, ranges from 0 to infinity, with R = 0 corresponding to the
phase-change on the shell-side and R → ∞ to phase-change on the tube side.

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Multi-Pass and Cross-Flow Heat Exchanger…Correction Factor

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Multi-Pass and Cross-Flow Heat Exchanger…Correction Factor

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Multi-Pass and Cross-Flow Heat Exchanger…Correction Factor

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Multi-Pass and Cross-Flow Heat Exchanger…Correction Factor

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• For a given NTU, the effectiveness becomes a maximum for c = 0 and a minimum for c = 1.
• The case c = Cmin /Cmax → 0 corresponds to Cmax → ∞, which is realized during a phase-change process in
a condenser or boiler.
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