Heat transfer in Agitated vessels: Agitated vessels are the vertical cylindrical

vessels incorporating suitable type of agitator that brings out even distribution in the
vessel. It may be paddle, anchor or turbine depending upon the situations.
Applications: Agitated vessels are commonly employed in chemical industries for
variety of purposes such as mixing, dissolution, dilution, neutralization, crystallization.

In such cases, addition or removal of heat is conveniently done by heat transfer
surface that may be in the form of jacket fitted out side the vessel or a helical coil
fitted to the inside.

The rate of heat transfer depends upon the physical properties of the agitated
liquid, heating and cooling media, vessel geometry, and degree of agitation.
Film coefficients for jacket and coil: hi inside film coefficient is given by
hi d
dv

= 0.023
k

0.8

Cp

, where n =0.4 for heating and 0.3 for cooling.

k

This equation is applicable for straight tube for coil, we have

3 .5 d
hi (Coil ) = hi (Straight )1 +

dc

Where d is the inside diameter of coil and dc is the diameter of helix.

The agitator Reynolds number is given as

2

N Re =

nd a

This number is very useful as correlating variable for heat transfer to jackets or
coils in agitated vessel.

For heating or cooling liquids in baffled agitated vessel equipped with helical coil
and turbine agitator , is given by

nd 2
hc d c
= 0.17 a
k

0.67

Cp

0.37

da

dt

d c

d t

0.5

0.24

Where, da= impeller diameter, dt=vessel diameter, n= impeller speed,r.p.m

Transient heating or cooling in agitated vessels (Un-steady state condition):

Consider a well-agitated vessel containing m kg liquid of specific heat Cp.It contains a
heat transfer surface of area A heated by a constant temperature medium, such as
condensing steam at temperature Ts .If the initial temperature of the liquid is Ta, its
temperature Tb at any time tT can be found as

T Ta UAt T
ln s
=
Ts Tb mC p
Note: when the heat transfer coefficient of one of the process fluid is very low as
compared to the other, such conditions extended surface heat exchanger can be
used.

Ex: Air and steam process.

Note: In extended surface heat exchanger the low heat transfer coefficient fluid (air) is
passed through the out side of the heat exchanger.
Note: The rate of heat transfer in scraped surface heat exchanger is given by

t
Q
= 2k (Tw T ) T
A

The heat transfer coefficient is given

hi = 2

C p k
t T

Note: The time interval between the passages of successive blades over a given element
of area in scraped surface heat exchanger is given by
tT =

1
, where n=Agitator speed, B =number of blades carried by shaft.
nB

Note: From the above relation, the heat transfer coefficient in scraped surface heat
exchanger is given by

hi = 2

C p knB