International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 60 (2013) 263273

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Particulate fouling and composite fouling assessment in corrugated plate heat exchangers
Guan-min Zhang a, Guan-qiu Li b, Wei Li b,, Zhaoyan Zhang c, Xue-li Leng a, Mao-cheng Tian a
a

School of Energy and Power Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, PR China Department of Energy Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, PR China c Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, United States
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Experimental and theoretical investigations of water-side fouling have been performed inside four corrugated plate heat exchangers. They have different geometric parameters, such as plate height, plate spacing, and plate angle. Fouling experiments including particulate fouling tests and composite particulate and precipitation fouling tests have been performed. The tests are primarily focused on the effects of concentration and average velocity. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to investigate the microscopic structures of composite fouling. Heat transfer coefcients and friction factors have been obtained in clean tests. The plate heat exchanger with the largest de and height to pitch ratio shows the best antifouling performance. The Von-Karman analogy was used to obtain mass transfer coefcient to develop appropriate semi-theoretical fouling correlations; The wall shear stress is obtained from the pressure drop. The model predictions agree well with experimental data. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 1 August 2012 Received in revised form 11 January 2013 Accepted 11 January 2013 Available online 4 February 2013 Keywords: Corrugated plate heat exchanger Fouling Scanning electron microscope Mass transfer coefcient Von-Karman analogy

1. Introduction Plate heat exchanger (PHE) has been widely used in the elds of energy transport due to its favorable characteristics, such as high heat transfer coefcient, easy maintenance, compact size and convenience to increase the heat transfer area, etc. In-depth research on PHEs is required to widen its range of application. Corrugations in plate heat exchangers enhance the heat transfer rate by increasing the heat transfer area and increasing the turbulence mixing at low ow rates. Researches in corrugated plate heat exchangers have drawn many interests recently. Kim et al. [1] conducted experimental study of cross-ow air-cooled PHEs, which included single-wave plates and double-wave plates in parallel. In comparison with single-wave PHE, double-wave PHE showed approximately 50% improvement in heat transfer performance at a cost of 30% increase in pressure drop. For commercialization, a wide channel design for air ow would be essential for reliable performance. Shaji and Das [2] studied the inuence of maldistribution in corrugated plate heat exchangers. The experiments were carried out with uniform and non-uniform ow distributions for various ow rates and different numbers of plates. It was concluded that the ow maldistribution and back mixing which led to axial dispersion were two different physical phenomena and should not be combined together as the early models of plate heat
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 13858087932.
E-mail address: weili96@zju.edu.cn (W. Li). 0017-9310/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2013.01.040

exchangers. Wanniarachchi et al. [3], correlated published experimental thermalhydraulic data to develop generalized correlations for prediction of heat transfer and pressure drop with the chevron angle as a geometric parameter. More than 90% of the heat exchangers have fouling problem, but fouling research has not been active in recent years. Chos team continued to develop anti-fouling technology [4]. They investigated the effect of a plasma-assisted self-cleaning lter on the performance of physical water treatment solenoid coil for the mitigation of mineral fouling in a concentric counter ow heat exchanger. The fouling resistances for the case of PWT coil plus lter dropped by 59%72% compared with those obtained for the no-treatment cases, while 18%35% drop was observed for the case of PWT coil only. Fouling brings many problems in the applications of PHEs. The heat transfer coefcient of fouled PHEs can be worse than the heat exchangers with no enhanced surfaces. Merheb et al. [5] developed the fouling monitor inside PHE in real time, using multiple optimized non-intrusive sensors. Low-frequency acoustic waves were propagated through the plates, and these waves were analyzed to measure their ability to detect fouling inside the PHE. By comparing the evolution of the acoustic wave parameters, an indicator of the fouling rate was obtained for each zone inside the exchanger. The results of this analysis showed that lowfrequency acoustic waves were sensitive to PHE fouling. Mahdi et al. [6] proposed a two-dimensional dynamic fouling model for milk fouling to predict the performance of a plate heat exchanger subject to fouling, using material balance equations. Their results

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Nomenclature Ac Aeff Apr B Cb cp,c cp,h DAB de Di dp e f j KB kf L LMTD mc mh Nu p P Pr Pwet Q Qc Qh Rc Re Rh Rtotal Rw Sc cross-section area, m2 efcient heat transfer area in each plate, m2 projection area in each plate, m2 time constant, 1/s bulk concentration, kg m3 constant-pressure specic heat of cold water, J/(kg K) constant-pressure specic heat of hot water, J/(kg K) Brownian diffusivity (DAB = (KBT)/(3pldp)), m2/s hydraulic diameter of plate heat exchangers, m diameter to root of ns, m particulate diameter, m rib height in, m fanning friction factor, dimensionless 2=3 colburn j-factor ( St P r ), dimensionless Boltzmann constant (=1.38E23), J/K thermal conductivity of deposit, W/m K ow channel length inside plate heat exchangers, m log-mean temperature difference, K mass ow rate of cold water, kg/h mass ow rate of hot water, kg/h Nusselt number, dimensionless axial element pitch, m sticking probability, dimensionless Prandtl number, dimensionless wetted perimeter of plate heat exchangers average heat transfer of cold water side and hot water side, W heat transfer of cold water side, W heat transfer of hot water side, W thermal resistance of cold water side, K/W Reynolds number thermal resistance of hot water side, K/W overall thermal resistance, K/W thermal resistance of heat conduction, K/W Schmidt number (Sc = m/DAB), dimensionless St t T Tc,in Tc,out Th,in Th,out T0 u u0 Stanton number, dimensionless time, s uid temperature, K cold water inlet temperature, K cold water outlet temperature, K hot water inlet temperature, K hot water outlet temperature, K temperature in centrality of PHEs, K average ow velocity through plates, m/s ow velocity in centrality of PHEs, m/s

Greek symbols DP pressure drop between inlet and outlet, Pa DQ heat transfer difference between hot water side and cold water side, W ss wall shear stress, Pa m kinematic viscosity, m2/s lf dynamic viscosity of uid, Pa s lw dynamic viscosity of wall, Pa s q density of uid, kg/m3 qf density of deposit, kg/m3 Ud fouling deposition rate, kg/m2 s Ur fouling removal rate, kg/m2 s r fouling process index, dimensionless n the deposit bond strength, dimensionless Subscripts c cold water cl clean condition eff efcient area h hot water in inlet out outlet pr projection area 14 1st to 4th PHE

showed fouling was highly dependent on the various process operating conditions. The mass of deposit depended mainly on milk temperature and time of processing. Srbislav et al. [7] did experiments on 8 plate heat exchangers to heat water for radiator heating system. For domestic hot water, the fouling factor strongly depends on the water velocity, or in other words on the cold uid wall shear stress. They think that shear stress value of 50 Pa was proven to be a lower limit for design of plate heat exchangers that are working with uids of high fouling tendency. Lei et al. [8] tested the effects of surface roughness and textures of the PHE on calcium carbonate fouling, and found that the growth rate, the distribution and the crystal size of calcium carbonate fouling were strongly dependent on the surface texture and nish. Balasubramanian and Puri [9] tested a pilot-scale plate heat exchanger system. It has modied surfaces for possible thermal energy savings while processing milk and tomato juice at pasteurization temperatures. Maximum decrease in thermal energy of 15.86% was observed when Lectrouor-641TM was used for skim milk pasteurization. There have not been many fouling models that are able to predict fouling potential in PHEs in the literature. Bonis and Ruocco [10] developed a two dimensional model for a single channel of PHE in laminar regime to investigate the inuence of temperature and velocity on the fouling performance, and proved that CFD modeling results can be used to optimize PHE geometry. Galeazzo et al. [11] have conducted 3D modeling of an industrial PHE with non-chevron type in order to simplify computational efforts. Li

and co-workers have developed fouling models based on heat and mass transfer analogy for internal enhanced tubes [1215]. Contrary to the CFD models for PHEs, Heat and mass transfer analogy were used to develop semi-theoretical fouling model. Since the ow pattern between corrugated plates in a PHE is much different from that inside tubes, the mass transfer coefcient Km for PHE can be calculated through following analogies: Prandtl analogy, Von-Karman analogy, and Chilton-Colburn analogy. Because the gap between corrugated plates is small (usually less than 2 mm), the Von-Karman analogy denes ow structure between plates more accurately than Chilton-Colburns and Prandtls analogy. According to the Von-Karman analogy, turbulent ows near a wall surface are divided into three regions: laminar region, buffer region, and turbulent region. The thickness of the turbulent region is much larger than the thickness of the buffer region, and the thickness of the buffer region is much larger than the thickness of the laminar region. The deviation lacking of the turbulent region is the largest, and the deviation lacking of the laminar region is the smallest. Although the thickness of laminar region is thin, the ow in the laminar region has signicant inuences on heat and mass transfer in PHEs, which cannot be ignored. In the laminar region, the laminar ow ceases being smooth and steady. Heat is primarily transferred through conduction, the resistance in laminar region is large, and the temperature difference across this region is large. The present paper provides accelerated fouling data for four corrugated PHEs, which have different geometric designs. Both particulate fouling and composite particulate and precipitation

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fouling are investigated. In the same test condition including the same ow velocity, inlet ow temperature, and foulant concentration, comparison between the different geometric designs had been done. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) is used to obtain the microscopic performance of the fouling deposition. A semi-theoretical fouling model has been established to correlate experimental data. This study is the rst attempt to adopt the Von-Karman analogy in PHE fouling models. 2. Experiment design and data reduction 2.1. Experiment set-up Table 1 shows four different geometries of the corrugated plate heat exchangers, which are commercially available. The 4th PHE is widely used in industrial chillers. It is used as a baseline for this

research. These four PHEs listed in Table 1 have the same plate thickness of 0.5 mm and a similar plate angle of 60 and 65. The 3rd PHE have the largest surface heat-transfer area ratio Aeff/Apr, while the 1st PHE have the smallest Aeff/Apr. The hydraulic diameter de is calculated by the following equation:

de 4Ac =Pwet

where Ac and Pwet are the cross-section area and the wetted perimeter of the PHEs. The 4th PHE has the largest hydraulic diameter de and the smallest Aeff/Apr, while the 3rd PHE has the smallest de and the largest Aeff/Apr. In order to test the heat and mass transfer coefcient of the PHEs listed in Table 1, a test rig has been established and Fig. 1(a) shows the schematic of the test apparatus, which consists of 4 closed loops: (1) hot water loop, (2) cold water loop in which the fouling material is added in the fouling tests, (3) vapor loop

Table 1 Geometry parameters of plate heat exchangers. Plate No. 1 2 3 4 Plate angle 65 60 60 60 Plate height (mm) 2.0 2.5 2.0 3.0 Corrugation pitch (mm) 7 10 8 13.5 Plate thickness (mm) 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 de (mm) 4.0 5.0 4.0 6.0 Aeff/Apr 1.31 1.52 1.54 1.43

Valve

Flow meter T

Tank Pump Hot steam Heat exchanger Cold water Loop Vale Valve Flow meter Vale Heat exchanger Pump
From cooling tower

Hot water loop

(a)
Cold water out P P Hot water in Hot water Main valve flow meter 1 of hot water P P Hot water flow meter 2 P P Hot water flow meter 3 P P T T PHE 4 T T PHE 3 T T P P Cold water flow meter 4 T T PHE 2 T T P P Cold water flow meter 3 PHE 1 T T P P Cold water flow meter 2 T T T T P P

(b)

Hot water flow meter 4

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic drawing of the test rig; (b) Parallel structure of test section.

T: Temperature P: Differential pressure

Hot water out

Cold water Main valve flow meter 1 of cold water

Cold water in

Hot water Cold water

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G.-m. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 60 (2013) 263273 Table 2 Accuracy for sensors and parameters. Sensors Devices Temperature transducer Pressure transducer Different pressure transducer Water ow meter Maximum parameter uncertainty Average heat transfer (W) LMTD Heat transfer coefcient, h (W/m2 K) Uncertainty 0.15 + 0.002|t|C 0.1% of full scale 0.05% of full scale 0.25% of full scale Range 20100 C 06 MPa 0100 kPa 0.511 m3/h 5.565% 1.224% 5.698%

which maintains the inlet temperature of hot water, and (4) cooling water loop which maintains temperature of cold water. The test rig is capable of testing six PHEs simultaneously and the PHEs are tested in parallel in order to guarantee the same inlet condition at any times. In this section, four PHEs listed in Table 1 are tested and the actual connections between the PHEs are shown in Fig. 1(b). The inlet and outlet temperatures of hot water and cold water are measured using Platinum RTDs, calibrated with an accuracy of 0.15 + 0.002|t|. A differential pressure transducer is used to measure the pressure drop across the test section. Because measurements are taken only at the inlet and outlet of the test section, heat transfer measurements give average values rather than local values and pressure drop measurements give total pressure drop for the entire test section. 2.2. Experiment conditions Both clean tests and fouling tests were performed. Because of the compact design and corrugations between the plates, a high degree of turbulence can be obtained in PHEs at low Reynolds number (200400). In this paper, the minimum Reynolds number of four tested plate heat exchangers in clean tests and fouling tests is about 600. Therefore, turbulent ow is maintained in all four PHEs in clean tests and fouling tests. The equal Reynolds number method [16] and the modied Wilson Plot method [17] are used to calculate single side heat transfer coefcient for both hot water side and cold water side, and it is assumed that it has the similar heat transfer correlations for the hot water side and cold water side. The clean tests are conducted with inlet temperatures of 57 C and 40 C for hot water and cold water, respectively. In the particulate fouling tests and composite fouling tests, the foulants were added in the cold water and the temperature of cold water was maintained at 40 C. Since the cold water was maintained at 40 C in clean tests as well, this reduces experimental uncertainty in the fouling tests. The hot water in the fouling tests did not have foulant and was maintained at an inlet temperature of 57 C. The effects of concentration were studied in particulate fouling tests, whereas the effects of uid velocity were studied in composite fouling tests. The foulant used in particulate fouling tests is Al2O3 and the concentrations are 1000 mg/L, 2000 mg/L and 3000 mg/L. The foulants used in composite fouling tests are the compounds of precipitation fouling, NaHCO3 and CaCl2, and particulate fouling, Al2O3 particulates. The average velocities of composite fouling tests are 0.2 m/s, 0.4 m/s and 0.6 m/s. In addition, a composite fouling test was carried out at an inlet temperature of 50 C to compare with the composite fouling tests above. 2.3. Data reduction The temperature, pressure and volume ow rate taken by the data acquisition system are reduced to calculate the heat transfer coefcients on both sides of PHEs. The material properties of the hot water and cold water in the test section were obtained from NIST-REFPROP using the average temperature and average pressure of the inlet and outlet in PHEs. Total heat transfer coefcient in the test section is determined from an energy balance on the water owing through the PHEs. The total heat transfer resistance Rtotal is obtained from the average heat transfer rate Q (=0.5Qh + 0.5Qc) and the log-mean temperature difference LMTD,

2.4. Experimental uncertainty The measurement devices used in this study include Platinum RTDs, absolute pressure transducers, differential pressure transducers and magnetic ow meters, which are calibrated to NIST traceable standards. The experimental uncertainties associated with the sensors in use and calculated parameters considered are listed in Table 2. The uncertainty is obtained from the following calculations. It is assumed that y is an indirect measured function, which can be calculated from several direct measured functions in Eq. (3). The deviation of y is shown in Eq. (4)

y f x1 ; x 2 ; . . . ; x n dy=y @ f =@ x1 2 dx1 =x1 2 @ f =@ x2 2 dx2 =x2 2 @ f =@ xn 2 dxn =xn 2 0:5

The largest deviations of main direct measured parameters including temperature, volume ow rate, absolute pressure and pressure drop are 0.6%, 5.5%, 3%, 5%. The deviation of hc is no more than 3%, which is obtained using equal Reynolds number method and the modied Wilson Plot method. The uncertainties of Q, LMTD, Rtotal can be calculated through Eq. (4), which are listed in Table 2. 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Clean tests Pressure drop and heat transfer coefcient are measured for the four plate heat exchangers. The Fanning friction factor is given by the following equation:

f de DP=2Lqu2

The uid velocities are calculated through the nominal crosssectional ow area determined from de. The test results show that the 3rd PHE has the largest pressure drop due to the smallest spacing between its plates and the second longest channel length. The 2nd PHE has the lowest pressure drop because of the large plate spacing and the small channel length. Eqs. (6a)(6d) shows the correlations of f vs. Re in PHEs

f1 35:226Re0:462 f2 37:971Re0:533 f3 36:684Re0:425 f4 14:784Re0:367

6a 6b 6c 6d

Rtotal LMTD=Q Rh Rw Rc

where Rh and Rc are the heat transfer resistance on hot water side and cold water side, Rw is the heat conduction resistance which may be neglected in the calculations. Rh and Rc are calculated from the modied Wilson Plot method.

The friction factor f in PHEs decreases with the increase of Re. Total heat transfer coefcient can be calculated using the data reduction method discussed in Section 2.3. In order to obtain the heat transfer coefcient in the single side of PHEs, it is important

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267

to separate the heat transfer resistance in single side of PHEs from the total heat transfer resistance. In Eq. (2), Rw can be neglected comparing with Rh and Rc. Rh and Rc can then be calculated through the equal Reynolds number method and the modied Wilson plot method. It is assumed that it has the similar correlations for Rh and Rc, because of the same geometric design and ow conditions in the both sides of PHEs. The Nusselt number of the hot water side and cold water side in PHEs can be expressed by,

The 1st PHE has the best heat transfer performance because of the most compact structure design, while the 2nd PHE has the worst heat transfer performance. Comparing with the 2nd PHE, the 4th PHE has looser structure, however, the larger plate height of the 4th PHE enhance the heat transfer between the plates. 85% of the clean test data have the heat balance deviation of less than 5%. 3.2. Fouling test Because fouling formation in actual applications is a slow process, high foulant concentration is used to accelerate fouling processes in the experiments. This allows signicant fouling to occur within several days or even several hours. Typically, six different forms of fouling may occur in industrial applications. They are precipitation fouling, particulate fouling, chemical fouling, corrosion fouling, biological fouling and solidication fouling. More than 90% of the water used in industrial applications is cooling water. The fouling problems in cooling water have been taken more seriously and the forms of fouling inside cooling water are basically a combination of particulate fouling and precipitation fouling [18]. In this paper, these two types of fouling experiments have been conducted to investigate the fouling characteristic in PHEs, including particulate fouling tests and composite fouling tests. Fouling formation may follow one of the four patterns: linear increasing, linear decreasing, power and asymptotic [19]. Asymptotic fouling is the most common fouling style in industrial applications. Experimental result shows that the development of fouling

u CRen Prm lf =lw 0:14

where m = 0.3 for hot water side and m = 0.4 for cold water side, lf and lw are the average dynamic viscosity at the uid temperature and the wall temperature. Fig. 2 shows the correlation results of the heat transfer coefcient in hot water side of the four tested PHEs, in which the results of equal Reynolds number method and modied Wilson plot method have been considered. The correlations of Nu of 1st4th PHE are listed in Eqs. (8a)(8d). The power of Pr is 0.3 for hot water side and 0.4 for cold water side

Nu1 0:686Re0:523 Pr 0:30:4 lf =lw 0:14 Nu2 0:407Re0:58 Pr0:30:4 lf =lw 0:14 Nu3 0:412Re0:591 Pr 0:30:4 lf =lw 0:14 Nu4 0:618Re0:534 Pr 0:30:4 lf =lw 0:14

8a 8b 8c 8d

Fig. 2. Heat transfer coefcient of hot water side in PHEs calculated through the equal Reynolds number method and modied Wilson plot method: (a) 1st PHE; (b) 2nd PHE; (c) 3rd PHE; (d) 4th PHE.

268 Table 3 Fouling test conditions. Different fouling tests Particulate fouling tests Test I Foulant

G.-m. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 60 (2013) 263273

Setting velocity 0.2 m/s

Setting temperature 40 C

Al2O3 1000 mg/L

Composite fouling tests

Test II Test III Test I

Al2O3 2000 mg/L Al2O3 3000 mg/L Al2O3 2000 mg/L, hardness 1525 mg/L Al2O3 2000 mg/L, hardness 1555 mg/L Al2O3 2000 mg/L, hardness 1495 mg/L

0.2 m/s 0.2 m/s 0.2 m/s

40 C 40 C 40 C

Test II Test III

0.4 m/s 0.6 m/s

40 C 40 C

formation in our tests follows an asymptotic pattern. The different fouling tests conditions are listed in Table 3. The fouling resistance of the tested PHEs can be calculated using Eq. (9). The value of Rf is taken at the end of the test period to be the asymptotic value R f for each PHE.

Rf Rc Rc;cl

Three particulate fouling experiments have been done after the clean tests. Aluminum oxide particulates are used as foulant which have an average particulate diameters 2.5 lm. In this set of the experiments, the concentration inuences in the fouling deposition are the critical parameter. The initial concentrations in cold water are 1000, 2000, 3000 mg/L in particulate test I, II, III, respectively. All other experimental conditions are the same. The average velocities of cold water in the three tests are 0.2 m/s and the inlet temperatures of cold water are maintained at 40 C. The dissolvent of aluminum oxide particulates is simple city water and the hardness of water is about 200250 mg/L, which can be measured through the sclerometer. Fig. 3 shows the measured fouling resistance for the four tested PHEs in particulate fouling tests. It can be found that the fouling resistances of the PHEs tested in particulate fouling experiments are dependent on the foulant concentration. In Fig. 3, the fouling resistances when concentration of aluminum oxide particulates is 3000 mg/L are about 1.21.8 times the fouling resistances when the concentration is 2000 mg/L; the fouling resistances when the concentration is 2000 mg/L are about 1.31.5 times the fouling resistances when the concentration is 1000 mg/L. The asymptotic values are shown in Table 4. A series of composite fouling tests have also been conducted. The composite fouling tests investigate the inuences of ow velocity and three different average velocities are used in three composite fouling tests. The cold water average velocities across the plates are 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 m/s in composite fouling test I, II, III, respectively. All other experimental conditions are the same. The inlet temperature of cold water is 40 C and the initial hardness in cold water is about 1500 mg/L. The particulate concentration at the beginning of the tests is 2000 mg/L approximately. At the end of the composite fouling tests, the hardness in cold water decreased to nearly 600 mg/L. Fig. 4 shows the measured fouling resistance of composite fouling experiments for the four tested PHEs. It can be seen that the fouling resistances of the tested PHEs are inversely dependent on the ow velocity. Fig. 4 shows the fouling resistances at ow velocity of 0.2 m/s are about 1.31.6 times the fouling resistances at ow velocity of 0.4 m/s; the fouling resistances at ow velocity of 0.4 m/s are about 1.11.7 times the fouling resistances at ow velocity of 0.6 m/s. In addition, more fouling deposition can be found in composite fouling tests than the particulate fouling tests at similar conditions. Asymptotic values of composite fouling tests are also listed in Table 4. The 1st PHE shows the greatest fouling resistance in both

Fig. 3. Fouling data for the four plate heat exchangers, (a) Particulate fouling test I; (b) Particulate fouling test II; (c) Particulate fouling test III.

particulate fouling tests and composite fouling tests, while the 4th PHE shows the best anti-fouling performance. The ratio of corrugation pitch and plate height is the key parameters in fouling deposition. The 1st PHE has the lowest ratio of corrugation pitch and plate height, while the 4th PHE has the highest ratio. Low ratio of corrugation pitch and plate height increases the fouling resistance. The plate angle is also an important parameter. The plate angle of 60 is a turning point. At this point, the ow pattern inside the PHE changes from cross ow to tortuous ow. This is very important both in heat transfer and fouling deposition. A plate angle of over 60 has negative impact on the fouling performance

G.-m. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 60 (2013) 263273 Table 4 Fouling test results. Different fouling tests
4 R f 10 K=W Particulate fouling tests 4 R f 10 K=W Composite fouling tests

269

Test I 1st plate 2nd plate 3rd plate 4th plate 2.7547 1.6155 1.3047 1.0263

Test II 3.9099 2.5103 1.8595 1.5067

Test III 6.17689 3.96991 3.18206 2.30412

Test I 12.101 7.2391 4.8139 2.5865

Test II 7.8288 5.0806 3.1344 1.8516

Test III 5.99755 4.2754 2.4097 1.1729

of the PHE. In addition, it can be seen that there are some differences in the intersections between the plates. These intersections accelerate the deposit removal because the velocities in these places are larger than the other places due to its narrow spacing. Because the 1st PHE has the least number of intersections, it hinders the deposit removal and it explains why 1st PHE has the largest fouling resistance. 3.3. Microscopic study of composite fouling tests The precipitation fouling and particulate fouling will inuence each other in composite fouling. The crystallization processes can be inuenced by the particulate deposition and the particulates can also be deposited in the crystal structure. It is necessary to conduct microscopic study of the interactions between the precipitation fouling and particulate fouling in composite fouling tests. Since the formation of precipitation fouling is the growth process of the crystal, the crystallization is the crucial process in precipitation fouling. The crystallization needs nucleation sites. The rough heat transfer surface provides the most common nucleation sites. In composite fouling tests, the particulates can be the additional nucleation sites, which can increase the crystallization rate. It means the particulates in composite fouling tests will enhance the precipitation fouling because of the increased nucleation site. Fig. 5(a) gives one of the SEM photo in composite fouling test I and it can be found the interactions between the crystals and the Al2O3 particulates. In addition, the crystal in composite fouling tests will change the surface roughness and the particulate deposition processes will be further enhanced. The chemical component of the composite fouling test I is shown in Fig. 5(b), and the main chemical elements are Al and Ca. The proportions of fouling components are listed in Table 5. The crystal in Fig. 5(a) shows the bulk structure, which is called calcite crystal. The calcite crystal will be formed when the temperature in fouling formation is low. In order to study the mechanism of the composite fouling deposition, another fouling test is added to compare with the fouling result in Fig. 5(a). A cold water inlet temperature of 50 C and Fe2O3 are used in the experiments. Different types of particulates (Al2O3 and Fe2O3) do not show significant effects on the fouling process. The difference in the fouling resistance of these two composite fouling tests is mainly due to different inlet temperatures. In Fig. 6(a), it can be seen that the crystal shows a stick structure, which indicates aragonite crystal. The aragonite crystals have looser structure than the calcite crystal, and the fouling deposition is much more severe. In addition, the interactions between the crystals and particulates may strengthen the fouling formation, which is corroborated by the fouling tests results. The composite fouling deposition is strengthened comparing with particulate fouling, which is similar to the test result in Table 4. The microscopic composition of the composite fouling test is shown in Fig. 6(b). The main chemical elements are Ca and Fe. The proportions of fouling components are listed in Table 5.

Fig. 4. Fouling data for the four plate heat exchangers, (a) Composite fouling test I; (b) composite fouling test II; (c) composite fouling test III.

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Fig. 5. (a) SEM photo of one composite fouling test (inlet temperature 40 C); (b) main chemical elements of composite fouling.

Table 5 Fouling chemical element for composite fouling test I and added composite fouling test. Element Composited fouling test I C O Na Al Si Cl Ca Fe C O Na Si Cl Ca Fe Wt% 12.61 40.76 00.42 28.54 00.00 00.15 16.94 00.58 12.11 40.26 00.86 00.66 00.79 27.72 17.59 At% 20.54 49.85 00.36 20.70 00.00 00.08 08.27 00.20 21.85 54.53 00.81 00.51 00.48 14.99 06.83

4. Fouling model Kern and Seaton [19] assumed the deposit accumulation was the result of two simultaneous opposing processes: fouling deposition and fouling removal, which can be decided by the fouling deposition rate Ud and the fouling removal rate Ur. Ud was proportional to mass transfer coefcient, sticking probability and deposit bond strength. Ur was directly proportional to the shear stress and the mass of the fouling deposit per unit area. The fouling resistance and asymptotic fouling resistance can be calculated through Eqs. (10)(12), which can be used to predict fouling behavior, provided that Km, P, ss and n are known [19]
Bt Rf R f 1 e

Added composite fouling test

10 11 12

R f K m PC b n=ss kf qf B ss = n

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Fig. 6. (a) SEM photo of added composite fouling test (inlet temperature 50 C); (b) main chemical elements of composite fouling.

The Von Karman analogy is used to calculate Km. The three-region model of the Von-Karman analogy is expected to provide better accuracy. The equations can be obtained as following:

ss DPAc =Aw 0:5f qu2

Combining Eqs. (13b) and (14) yields:

14

St j Pr 2=3 f =2=f1 f =2 St 0 K m =u0 f =2=f1 f =20:5 5Sc 1 5Ln5Sc 1=6g 13b

0:5

K m =u0 4=b m2 2ab 2b m b 2ab 5Pr 1 5Ln5Pr 1=6g 13a

2 0.5

15

where, m = [1 + 4/(b St)] , a = 5(Sc 1) + 5 Ln[(5Sc + 1)/6], b = 5(Pr 1) + 5 Ln[(5Pr + 1)/6]. Since the 4th PHE is widely used in industrial chillers, it is used as the baseline. The asymptotic fouling resistance can be expressed as
R f =Rf4 rK m =K m4 =f =f4 rj =j4 =f =f4 0 0

Eqs. (13a) and (13b) is Von-Karman analogy of heat, ow and mass transfer, which can also be applied to turbulent boundary in PHEs. For rough surfaces, a fraction of the pressure drop may be due to the prole drag on roughness elements. It can be assumed that the pressure drop is dominated by wall shear stress [15], and that the prole drag component is small. Hence the shear stress may be written as,

16

Where,

j StPr2=3 j 4=b m2 2ab 2b m b 2ab

0 2 2 2

17 18

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fouling, due to the complex fouling behavior in composite fouling. The fouling models also show that composite fouling incurs larger fouling resistance increasing than particulate fouling.

5. Conclusion This paper provides clean tests of heat transfer and uid ow and fouling tests of particulate fouling and composite fouling in four commercially available corrugated PHEs with different geometrical designs, such as plate height, plate spacing, and plate angle. (1) In clean tests, the inlet temperatures of hot water and cold water are maintained at 57 C and 40 C. Most of the clean test data have heat balance deviation of less than 5%. The equal Reynolds number method and the modied Wilson plot method are used to obtain the heat transfer coefcients on both sides of the plate. The 3rd PHE with the smallest de and the second largest ow length has the largest friction factor, while the 2nd PHE with the second largest de and the second smallest ow length has the largest friction factor has the smallest friction factor; the 1st PHE with the most compact structure has the largest friction factor and the best heat transfer performance, while the 2nd PHE has the worse heat transfer performance. (2) Particulate fouling experiments and composite fouling experiments have been performed in the fouling tests. The tests are primarily focused on the effects of concentration and average velocity. The 4th PHE shows the best anti-fouling performance and the 1st PHE which has the most compact structure has the most increase in fouling resistance. The SEM photos have been taken for composite fouling tests. The particulates in composite fouling will enhance the crystal growth process while the crystal will enhance the deposition of particulates. In the second composite fouling test, the deposit layer shows different structure of the CaCO3 crystal comparing with the rst composite fouling test because of the higher temperature. The CaCO3 crystals change to aragonite structures when the uid temperature is high; while the CaCO3 crystals are calcite structures when the uid temperature is low. Calcite structure has a more compact structure. (3) A semi-empirical fouling model has been obtained to predict the fouling factors in different PHEs. The mass transfer coefcient Km is calculated by using the Von-Karman analogy and the wall shear stress ss is calculated theoretically. Two rationally based power law correlations of R f =Rf4 as a function of bg in particulate fouling tests and composite fouling tests are developed for the four tested PHEs. The fouling model agrees well with the experimental results. It can be used to guide the design and actual operations of PHEs.

Fig. 7. Curve t between R f =Rf4 and bg: (a) particulate fouling tests; (b) composite fouling tests.

j4 4=b m2 4 2ab 2b m4 b 2ab

0 0 =j4

19

In Eq. (16), j indicates the relative foulant deposition ratio, and 0 0 f/f4 indicates the relative foulant removal ratio. j =j4 =f =f4 can be dened as g, and an area revised parameter b = (Aeff/Aeff,4)/ (Apr/Apr,4) is used to correct the wall shear stress. r = (Pn)/(P4n4) is the fouling process function and can be assumed to be the function of bg. Other parameters (Cb, kf, qf) are the property parameters, which can be eliminated when calculating R f =Rf4 . Rf =Rf4 vs. bg may be curve-tted to determine the functional dependence r empirically. Fig. 7(a) and (b) shows the fouling data in Table 4 plotted in the form R f =Rf4 vs. bg. The Rf =Rf4 is well correlated as a function of bg. A power law curve t of Fig. 7(a) and (b) gives,
0:442 R f =Rf4 1:08bg R f =Rf4

20a 20b

Acknowledgements The National Key Technology R&D Program Highly-Effective Energy-Saving Techniques for Combined Buildings (#2012BAA10B01) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China Fundamental study on Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) using low/medium grade heat for thermal power generation (#51210011) provided the funding for this research. We would like to delicate this work to the memory of late Professor Ralph Webb who passed away in April, 2011.

1:44bg

0:586

Eq. (20a) predicts the particulate fouling in the tested PHEs and Eq. (20b) predicts the composite fouling in the tested PHEs. It can be used to predict the fouling resistance after obtaining the heat transfer and friction factor of the different PHEs. The fouling model captures the fouling behavior well. The deviations in Eq. (20a) are less than 6% and those in Eq. (20b) are less than 18%. The fouling model show better prediction in particulate fouling than in composite

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