This document summarizes an article about antivibration design of tubular heat exchangers. It discusses four main mechanisms of flow-induced vibration in heat exchangers: vortex shedding, fluid-elastic excitation, turbulent buffeting, and acoustic resonance. It then presents two discriminant formulae containing a dynamic magnification factor to provide antivibration judgement criteria. Finally, it outlines several feasible measures that can be implemented in heat exchanger design to prevent vibration failures, such as changing natural tube frequencies, decreasing shellside flow rates, employing new designs with longitudinal shellside flow, and increasing nozzle sizes.
This document summarizes an article about antivibration design of tubular heat exchangers. It discusses four main mechanisms of flow-induced vibration in heat exchangers: vortex shedding, fluid-elastic excitation, turbulent buffeting, and acoustic resonance. It then presents two discriminant formulae containing a dynamic magnification factor to provide antivibration judgement criteria. Finally, it outlines several feasible measures that can be implemented in heat exchanger design to prevent vibration failures, such as changing natural tube frequencies, decreasing shellside flow rates, employing new designs with longitudinal shellside flow, and increasing nozzle sizes.
This document summarizes an article about antivibration design of tubular heat exchangers. It discusses four main mechanisms of flow-induced vibration in heat exchangers: vortex shedding, fluid-elastic excitation, turbulent buffeting, and acoustic resonance. It then presents two discriminant formulae containing a dynamic magnification factor to provide antivibration judgement criteria. Finally, it outlines several feasible measures that can be implemented in heat exchanger design to prevent vibration failures, such as changing natural tube frequencies, decreasing shellside flow rates, employing new designs with longitudinal shellside flow, and increasing nozzle sizes.
Journal of Pressurized Equipment and Systems 2 (2004) 21-24
Antivibration design of tubular heat exchangers
Qi-Wu Dong
* , Min-Shan Liu Thermal Energy Engineering Research Center, Institute of Technology, Zhengzhou University, 97 Wenhua Road, Zhengzhou 450002, China
Abstract
Mechanism of failure caused by flow-induced vibration is studied in the paper. Discriminant formulae containing dynamic magnifi- cation factor are given for the antivibration design of heat exchangers. Several feasible measures are presented to prevent vibration failure in the design of heat exchangers. Keywords: Heat exchanger; Flow-induced vibration; Judgement criterion; Antivibration design.
1. Introduction
As the production capacity in power industry, nu- clear power plant, oil refinery, chemical fertilizer in- dustry, chemical industry, metallurgical industry and so on is increasing, the size of heat exchangers, as the main process equipment, becomes larger and larger. Accordingly, baffle pitch increases and rigidity of heat exchangers decreases. However, to intensify heat transfer and boost heat transfer coefficient, shellside flow rate has to be enhanced. In recent years fatigue fracture and wear damage caused by flow-induced vi- bration have been common occurrences. In order to improve the safety and stability of heat exchangers, mechanism of vibration in heat exchangers are studied and antivibration criterion and measures are presented for the design of heat exchangers in the paper.
2. Mechanism of flow-induced vibration in heat ex- changers
Failures of heat exchangers caused by flow-induced vibration are mainly in terms of the detriments of heat exchange tubes. Generally, there are several main mechanisms for flow-induced vibration in heat ex- changers as follows:
2.1. Vortex shedding When shellside fluid flows across heat exchange tubes, alternately varying Karman's vortex streets will come into being downstream of tubes, which generates periodic changing exciting forces, which direction is perpendicular to fluid flow, and results in vibration of tubes. When frequence of vortex shedding is close or equal to the natural frequence of tube, violent vibration
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: qwdong@zzu.edu.cn (Qi-Wu Dong). will occur.
2.2. Fluid-elastic excitation When fluid flows across tube bundle, due to the complexity of flow condition, some certain tube in the bank may take instant movement, thereby the flow field around it changes and the equilibrium of forces on adjacent tubes is broken, which makes tubes move and begin vibrating. When flow rate increases to a cer- tain degree, work of fluid elastic force on tube bundle will be larger than the work consumed by damping action of tubes, then amplitude of tube will increase rapidly and cause tubes to collide with each other and be destructed.
2.3. Turbulent buffeting Turbulence is generated when shellside fluid flow through tube bundle. In the depth of in-line and inter- lacing arrangement of tube bundle, with irregular tur- bulence enlarging gradually, degree of turbulent pres- sure fluctuation augments and has heat exchange tubes endure random fluctuating acting forces. When basic frequence of turbulence pulsating is proximal or equal to natural frequence of tube, fierce vibration will take place.
2.4. Acoustic resonance Acoustic resonance occurs only on the condition that shell-side fluid is gas. When gas flows across tube bundle, acoustic standing waves, which is perpendicu- lar to both tubes and flow direction, may come into being and be reflected repeatedly by inner wall of heat exchanger. Meanwhile, as gas flows across tube bundle, Karmans vortex street comes into being behind tubes. And when frequence of vortex street accords with the frequence of acoustic standing waves, the couple will come and all the kinetic energy of flow media will be transmuted to acoustic pressure waves, thereby vibra- Qi-Wu Dong & Min-Shan Liu / Antivibration design of tubular heat exchangers 22 tion and strong noise will appear in heat exchanger.
3. Antivibration judgement criterion of heat ex- changers
Based on Thorngrens Destruction Number for tube vibration, antivibration judgement criterion with dynamic modification is presented in the paper. Taking account of dynamic shearing stress and amplitude, dy- namic magnification factor is added in the derivation of Thorngrens Destruction Number formulas and the modification form of the two Destruction Num- ber is presented as follows. Judgement criterion for Destruction Number at baffles:
If
1 75 . 3 1 2 2 <
= t m m o BD B A g S L rw d N (1)
then design is safe. In the expression, the dynamic shearing force is assumed to act on 40% of the cross-sectional area of tubes and is less than the al- lowable fatigue stress of tube material, S m.
Judgement criterion for Destruction Numberof colliding between tubes:
If
1 ) ( 625 . 0 2 2 4 1 4 2 < +
= E C d d A g L rw d N t i o m o CD (2)
then design is safe. In the expression, the maximum dynamic deflection in the middle of tube span is sup- posed to be less than 50% of tube pitch, C t , in order to prevent tubes from colliding with each other. In Eq.(1) and Eq.(2), d i and d o refer to the inner and outer diameter of tube respectively. r and w represent the density and velocity of flow. B t is the thickness of baffle and 1 is the factor of clearance between tubes and baffles, which is defined as: a 1 1 = , when clearance is 0.4 mm (1/64 inch), 1 = 1.25; when clearance is 0.79 mm (1/32 inch), 1 = 1.0. S m is the allowable fatigue stress of tube material (which can be acquired from ASME, Section IV). A m is the metal sec- tional area of tube: ) ( 4 2 2 i o m d d A =
.C t stands for the tube span. Applying the two Destruction Number with vibra- tion factor involved to judge actual project cases, judgement results are more approximate to engineering practice and more exact, which can provide judege- ment criterion for the antivibration design of heat ex- changers.
4. Antivibration measures in the design of tubular heat exchangers
In order to make the design of heat exchangers safer and more reliable, several antivibration measures and structures are presented in the paper as follows. (1) Implementing analysis of dynamic characteris- tics for heat exchangers. It is known that shellside flow rate and natural fre- quence of heat exchange tube are the two major pa- rameters affecting vibration of heat exchangers, and the key parameters affecting tube vibrating are the first-order and second-order natural frequence, so its very necessary to implement dynamic analysis for heat exchangers. Using finite element method, dynamic finite element method and transfer matrix method, the natural frequence of large tubular heat exchanger can be calculated, and corresponding computer program is composed to calculate the natural frequence of tube conveniently, and to make the frequence of exciting force apart from the natural frequence of heat ex- changer. (2) Changing the natural frequence of heat exchange tube. The most effective method is to reduce the tube span. If tube span is reduced to half, natural frequence will increase about four times. And natural frequence of tubes can also be enhanced effectively by means of supporting both ends of tubes with fixed bearing and increasing bending modules of heat exchange tubes. According to experiments, natural frequence of tube can be augmented effectively on condition that heat exchange tubes are in a state of tension stress or fit between baffles and tubes are close to force fit. In this way, failures caused by flow-induced vibration can be avoided. (3) Decreasing shellside flow rate. The frequence of flow-excited force will decline accordingly if crossflow flux or rate on shell-side is reduced. In this way, failure caused by flow-induced vibration can be avoided, but productivity of heat ex- changers will descend at the same time. So its advis- able to use double segmental baffles and structures with total crossflow or divided flow, which is benefi- cial to preventing vibration, decreasing pressure drop and intensifying heat transfer simultaneously. (4) Employing new type heat exchanger with longi- tudinal flow on shellside. In this way, flow condition can be improved and transverse flow is transformed into longitudinal flow, which decreases the fluid exciting force on tubes. Therefore, not only heat transfer efficiency can be heightened and pressure drop can be decreased, but also flow-induced vibration can be effectively pre- vented. This is by far the most ideal and effective measure to prevent vibration failure (Figs. 1-3). (5) If vibration problems mainly result from the high flow rate in entrance or exit region, increasing Journal of Pressurized Equipment and Systems 2 (2004) 21-24 23 nozzle size to reducing flow rate at inlet and outlet, or installing impingement plate to avoid excessive excit- ing forces on tubes at inlet and outlet, or even install- ing guide shell (or distributor), or jamming the space between tube bundle and shell and any bypass flow in narrow spaces because high local velocities in these regions are subjected to induce vibration failure, are all effective measures. Figs. 4 and 5 show the structure of jacketed tapered flow distributor and the flow field in it, from which it can be seen that the fluid at inlet is dis- tributed uniformly to flow along the tube bundle. (6) If manufacture conditions permit, diminishing the clearance between tubes and holes of baffles, or increasing thickness of baffles, B t , can weaken the shearing action between tubes and baffles. Besides, attrition of tubes can be reduced if hardness of the heat exchange tube material is lower than that of the baffle material because it is easier to change the failure tube than to change baffle plate. From the view of elastic mechanics, effect of local stress concentration can be enervated greatly if hole edges of baffles are cham- fered. However, such measures mentioned above may augment manufacturing cost and assembling difficulty at the same time.
Heat Exchange Tube Rod-Baffle
Fig. 1. Sketch of heat exchanger with longitudinal flow of shellside fluid.
Baffle
Fig. 2. Shellside flow field in heat exchanger with typical single segmental baffle.
Rod-Baffle Rod Vortex Street
Fig. 3 Shellside flow field in heat exchanger with longitudinal flow of shellside fluid.
Fig. 4. Jacketed tapered flow distributor. Fig. 5. Contours of velocity in flow distributor.
Qi-Wu Dong & Min-Shan Liu / Antivibration design of tubular heat exchangers 24 6. Conclusion
In the paper, the mechanisms of flow-induced vibra- tion are studied and the several main mechanisms are introduced. The discriminant formulae for antivibration judgement criterion are presented to provide reference for the antivibration design of heat exchangers. Besides, several feasible measures and structures are also sug- gested to prevent vibration and make the design of heat exchangers safer and more reliable. Such methods have been used in engineering application and remarkable effect has been achieved.
References
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