High-pressure fluids in shell-and-tube heat exchangers should ideally be directed through the________________?
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Answer: A. Tubes to avoid the expansion of high pressure shell construction
Explanation
Routing high-pressure fluids through tubes avoids building extremely thick, expensive high-pressure shell walls. Tubes have much smaller diameters than shells, allowing them to withstand high internal pressures with thin walls. Designing a high-pressure shell requires expensive forged steel and rigorous weld inspections, making tube routing economical. Shell-and-tube heat exchangers divide process fluids between an inner tube bundle and an outer enclosing shell. Hoop stress in cylindrical pressure vessels is directly proportional to internal fluid pressure and vessel diameter. Minimizing the diameter of high-pressure containment components drastically reduces material thickness and weight.
Petroleum refineries route high-pressure hydroprocessing reactor effluents through the tube side of exchangers. Smart equipment design saves substantial capital costs by containing high pressures within smaller tube diameters. Safety codes strictly regulate high-pressure shell construction to prevent catastrophic vessel ruptures. Placing high-pressure fluids on the shell side requires massive wall thicknesses, driving up manufacturing costs. Flow configuration choices like counter-current operation do not eliminate the structural need for thick shell walls. Overall heat transfer coefficients depend on film resistances rather than structural pressure containment rules.
- Subject
- Engineering
- Category
- Chemical Engineering
- Topic
- —
- Difficulty
- medium
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