1. Introduction
The heat exchanger is a device that transfers heat from a high-temperature fluid to a low-temperature one [
1]. The tubular heat exchanger, a kind of wall-type heat exchanger, is widely applied in the fields of chemical [
2], power [
3], food [
4], etc. It can be classified as a condensing or non-condensing heat exchanger, depending on whether the condensation occurs or not. Condensation is a common phenomenon that happens in nature and human life. The water vapor condensation mainly includes the convective-condensation of the pure steam [
5], the water vapor with a little non-condensable gas (NCG) [
6], the high-moisture flue gas [
7], and so on.
The logarithmic mean temperature difference (LMTD) is a crucial concept during the design of the heat exchanger. The LMTD method could be successfully employed only if two assumptions could be met: (1) the specific heat capacity and the mass flow rate of the hot and cold fluids are kept constant, and (2) the heat transfer coefficient is kept constant. Fortunately, both of the two assumptions are fulfilled during the convective-condensation process of the pure steam or the water vapor with a little NCG [
8,
9,
10].
During the convective-condensation process of the high-moisture flue gas, the heat and mass transfer occur at the same time [
11]. The flue gas parameters, such as the composition, the specific heat capacity, the convective heat transfer coefficient, etc., along the flow direction would vary considerably, resulting in a heat transfer process of great complexity. Therefore, the LMTD method is not applicable to solve the temperature difference between the hot and cold fluids. Meanwhile, it is difficult to calculate the average convective-condensation coefficient of the entire heat transfer surfaces. It is even harder to obtain the heat and mass transfer of the flue gas simultaneously only through the heat transfer calculation.
A series of previous studies [
12,
13,
14,
15,
16] have applied the experimental methods to examine the process of the convective-condensation heat transfer in the high-moisture flue gas and to explore the design calculation method of the condensing the heat exchanger. Zhao et al. [
17] established a system to study the condensation heat transfer of the water vapor mixed with air. The experimental results indicated that the condensation performance decreases significantly with the increasing volume fraction of air. Based on the theories of heat and mass transfer, Krempaský et al. [
18] proposed a condensation model of the water vapor with NCG. In their experimental verification, the mixture of water vapor and air flowed through a vertical tube, as the air proportion ranges from 0.230 to 0.620. The predicted and experimental results were in good agreement, with the standard deviation between -5 % and +25 %. Zhu et al. [
19] studied the effects of different parameters on the heat and mass transfer in an elliptical tube. The empirical correlations of heat transfer coefficient were finally fitted by analyzing the experimental data, which presented an enough accuracy in engineering. Xu et al. [
20] investigated the convective-condensation of the humid gas in a horizontal tube. The heat transfer performances of the corrugated and spiral tubes were compared to the bare tube. The heat transfer coefficient of the two intensified tubes increased by 47.13% and 116.04%, respectively. Poredoš et al. [
21] evaluated the condensation heat transfer of the humid air inside vertical channels theoretically and experimentally. A new semi-empirical correlation was developed in the theoretical part, with the applicable range of air mass fraction extending to 0.683–0.974. The correlation was verified experimentally, with 90% of the calculated values having relative errors within ±12% of the measured values.
Many other studies [
9,
22,
23] have utilized the LMTD method to determine the convective-condensation heat transfer coefficient on the flue gas side based on the experimental data. However, it is not appropriate to apply this method for calculating the thermodynamic parameters of the high-moisture flue gas during the convective-condensation process. Moreover, the convective-condensation heat transfer coefficient over the surface of the heat exchanger is distributed unevenly.
Numerical simulation has several advantages over experimental studies. For example, the condensing heat exchanger could be modeled in a 1:1 scale and studied numerically with the low investment. Therefore, a number of studies [24-26] have applied numerical methods to investigate the convective-condensation heat transfer of the flue gas. Morales-Fuentes et al. [
27] numerically simulated the process of the saturated air flowing through different finned-tube surfaces. They found that the pin finned-tube showed a higher condensation rate than the annular and plain finned-tubes. Guo et al. [
28] developed a numerical method to study the condensation of a plate evaporative cooler. The model was capable of predicting the state of condensation and calculating the ratio of condensation area. Alshehri et al. [
29] presented a numerical model to simulate the process of water vapor condensation in the presence of NCG. The state parameters of condensate film and diffusion layer were calculated and then coupled by the condensation interface. Dehbi [
30] highlighted the limitations of replacing the condensation rate of tube with the flat plate equivalents by correction factors, especially for the low NCG fraction and the small tube diameter. The procedure was improved by introducing a correlation from the numerical results. To broke the limitations of grids refinement, Li et al. [
31] presented an extended condensation model. The predicted values of the condensate water flowrate were close to the measured ones, with the greatest relative error of 5.5%. Considering the existence of NCG, Jiang et al. [
32] established a model for the convective-condensation heat transfer calculation on the basis of the pure steam dropwise condensation. The simulation results indicated that the capacities of absorptive mass transfer and surface condensation determined the heat transfer performance coordinately.
Previous researchers have applied the numerical simulations to examine how various factors affect the convective-condensation heat transfer through the CFD models, which could guide the design of the condensing heat exchanger. However, there are few studies focusing on the water vapor condensation in the finned-tube type bundles and the heat transfer of the high-moisture flue gas. It is also challenging to develop a thermal calculation model based on the numerical simulations alone.
A few researchers, such as Jeong [
33], realized the calculation of heat transfer and condensate water flowrate in the condensing heat exchanger by using the finite difference method. This method is more general and reflects the physical process of the convective-condensation heat transfer. However, it is a complicated process that takes a long time to complete. Moreover, for the finned-tube type bundles, this method could not offer a better reflection about the conditions of the water vapor condensation on the fin surface and the heat transfer of the flue gas.
To address these issues, this study proposes a new thermal calculation model for the widely used tubular condensing heat exchanger theoretically. The sensible and latent heat transfer efficiencies of fin are determined to characterize the degree of the heat and mass transfer. The experimental results in the study of Jeong [
33] are introduced to verify the proposed model.
2. Thermal calculation model for tubular condensing heat exchanger
2.1. Principle of thermal calculation
Taking a low-temperature heat tube in the condensing heat exchanger as an example, the convective-condensation heat transfer process of the high-moisture flue gas is illustrated in
Figure 1. When the wall temperature drops below the dew point of the flue gas, a condensate film occurs on the tube surface due to the water vapor condensation [
34,
35]. The water vapor on the tube wall is condensed into droplets [
36], causing a decrease in both the volume fraction and partial pressure of the water vapor. On the other hand, NCG accumulates in the low-temperature tube wall, leading to an increase in its volume fraction and concentration. Finally a boundary layer of NCG forms near the condensing wall, which would bring the primary resistance for the mass transfer of water vapor in the flue gas [
37,
38].
Assuming that the mean temperatures of the condensate film surface and the flue gas are and , respectively, the partial pressure of the water vapor of the two positions mentioned above is and , separately. Then the temperature difference and pressure difference offer the driving force for the heat and mass transfer, respectively. The sensible heat transfers from the flue gas to the cooling water through tube wall when the water vapor does not condense. However, when the condensation of water vapor occurs, the sensible and latent heat need to pass through the condensate film and tube wall in turn.
A simple geometric schematic of the condensing heat exchanger investigated in this study is displayed in
Figure 2. The tube rows that make up the heat exchanger are divided into transverse and longitudinal tube rows, which are perpendicular and parallel to the flow direction of the flue gas, respectively. Before preforming thermal calculation for the condensing heat exchanger, some assumptions are listed as follows.
- (1)
The flow of flue gas in a condensing heat exchanger is one-dimensional, which means that parameters like the temperature of the flue gas and the volume fraction of the water vapor only change in the direction of the gas flow.
- (2)
The convective heat transfer and convective mass transfer coefficients of the flue gas are evenly distributed on the outer wall of each tube.
- (3)
The inlet and outlet parameters such as the flue gas temperature, the volume fraction of the water vapor and the cooling water temperature are linearly changed for each transverse tube bundle, allowing for the calculated values of working fluid parameters in each bundle to be obtained through the arithmetic mean of these parameters.
- (4)
The flow on the flue gas side is single-phase and any effect of liquid condensate on the flow is ignored.
- (5)
Water vapor in the flue gas only condenses on the tube wall, not in the flue gas stream.
- (6)
The thickness of condensate film is considered to be zero and the heat and mass transfer resistance of this film is ignored.
- (7)
Secondary evaporation of the condensate water in the heat exchanger is also neglected.
- (8)
No chemical reaction occurs in the condensing heat exchanger.
Based on these assumptions, a thermal calculation model for the tubular condensing heat exchangers is proposed in this study. The main calculation principles are as follows:
- (1)
Firstly, the entire heat exchanger is divided into several tube bundles, with each transverse tube bundle being considered a heat exchanger unit. These units are connected in series to form the complete condensing heat exchanger.
- (2)
Next, the thermal calculation is conducted on each individual heat exchanger unit. The heat transfer from the flue gas to the cooling water is divided into three processes, including the convective-condensation heat transfer of the flue gas on the outer wall of tube, the heat conduction of the tube wall, and the convective heat release from the inner wall to the cooling water inside the tube. The most complex process is the first one. To solve this, the sensible heat is calculated by the classical heat transfer formula [
39]. The temperature difference for sensible heat transfer is equal to the difference between the arithmetic mean temperature of the incoming and outgoing flue gas and the temperature of the outer wall of tube. When the outer wall is under wet conditions, the latent heat transferred from the flue gas to the outer wall of tube is equal to the latent heat of vaporization released. The amount of the condensate water flowrate could be calculated by the classical mass transfer formula [
39]. The mass concentration difference of the water vapor for the mass transfer is equal to the difference between the arithmetic mean mass concentration of the incoming and outgoing flue gas and the mass concentration on the outer wall of tube. However, the condensate water flowrate is zero when the outer wall is under dry conditions.
- (3)
Finally, the thermal calculation is constructed for each heat exchanger unit in turn along the flow direction of the flue gas. The inlet parameters of the working fluid for the present heat exchanger unit are equal to the outlet parameters of the previous one. The iterative algorithm is applied for each heat exchanger unit and then the thermal calculation of the entire condensing heat exchanger could be completed.
2.2. Thermal calculation for each heat transfer unit
2.2.1. Sensible heat transfer
For the
ith heat transfer unit, the sensible heat of the flue gas for the bare-tube type bundle is calculated by:
where
is the convective exothermic coefficient from the flue gas to the outer wall of tube, (W m
-2 K
-1).
is the area of the outer wall of tube, (m
2).
and
are the average temperature of the flue gas and the outer wall of tube, respectively, (K).
For the finned-tube type bundle
, the sensible heat of flue gas is determined as:
where
is the area of tubes not occupied by fins,
is the area of fins, (m
2).
Additionally, the
in Equation (2) is a parameter called the sensible heat transfer efficiency of fin introduced in this study. The purpose is to characterize the effective degree of sensible heat transfer on the fin surface under wet conditions. It is defined as:
When the fins are under dry conditions, the total heat transfer on their surface is the same as the sensible heat transfer of the flue gas. This means that the sensible heat transfer efficiency of fin is equal to the fin efficiency, which can be obtained by the standard method [
40].
2.2.2. Condensate water flowrate and latent heat transfer
For the
ith heat transfer unit, the condensate water flowrate is zero under dry conditions. While for the bare-tube type bundle under wet conditions, it is calculated as:
where
is the convective mass transfer coefficient of the flue gas, (m s
-1).
and
are the average water vapor mass concentrations of the flue gas and the surface of the base-tube, respectively, (kg m
-3).
For the finned-tube type bundle, the condensate water flowrate is determined as:
Aiming at characterizing the effective degree of the condensation mass transfer on the fin surface under wet conditions, this study introduces
a parameter called the latent heat transfer efficiency of fin in Equation (5). It is described by:
After calculating the condensate water flowrate, the latent heat could be obtained by:
where
is the latent heat of vaporization for water vapor, (kJ kg
-1).
2.2.3. Energy balance on the flue gas side
The enthalpy difference between the inlet and outlet flue gas in the
ith heat transfer unit is equal to the sum of the sensible and latent heat transfer of the flue gas, which can be described as:
where
and
are the enthalpies of inlet and outlet flue gas, respectively, (kJ kg
-1).
2.2.4. Energy balance on the water side
The heat absorbed by the cooling water is equal to the heat released by the inner wall of tube.
where
is the constant-pressure specific heat capacity of the cooling water, (kJ kg
-1 K
-1),
is the convective heat transfer coefficient of the cooling water, (W m
-2 K
-1).
2.2.5. Total energy balance
The principle of energy conservation shows that the amount of heat released by the flue gas is equal to the amount of heat absorbed by the cooling water, which is also equal to amount of the heat conducted through the tube wall. This leads to the establishment of a total energy balance equation:
2.2.6. Heat conduction of the tube wall
The connection between the temperature of the inner and outer walls of tube can be established through the thermal conductivity equation. Then the temperature of the inner and outer walls of tube could be connected as:
where
is the tube thickness, (m),
is the fouling resistance, (m
2 K W
-1).
2.3. Sensible and latent heat transfer efficiencies of fin
The temperature distribution on the fin surface is significantly complicated under the wet conditions. Sharqawy et al. [
41,
42,
43] studied the fin efficiency and the fin surface temperature distribution under the wet conditions. They defined the fin efficiency
as:
where
is the greatest heat transfer assuming the fin surface temperature is equal to the fin-root temperature, (W).
Sharqawy et al. [41-43] did not differentiate between the sensible and latent heat efficiencies of fin in their study. However, it is clear from their results that when the condensation of the water vapor occurs on the fin surface, the main factors affecting the sensible and latent heat transfer efficiencies are, the ratio of the fin outer diameter to the tube outer diameter
Dfin/
d, the fin thickness
δfin, the fin height
hfin, the fin thermal conductivity
λfin, the convective heat transfer coefficient of the flue gas
hfg (or the convective mass transfer coefficient
), the flue gas temperature
Tfg, the volume fraction of the water vapor
ωv, the flue gas pressure
Pfg and the temperature of the outer wall of base-tube
Tow (the fin-root temperature). Then the fin efficiency can be written as:
To facilitate the engineering calculations, eight of the nine influencing factors mentioned above would be converted into two dimensionless parameters and by the method of magnitude analysis. Finally, , and are employed as the independent variables to obtain the formulae for the sensible and latent heat transfer efficiencies of fin.
Similar to the dimensionless parameter
defined in the standard method [
40], this study defines the dimensionless criterion number
that affects the heat and mass transfer performance of fin:
It can be seen that . With other parameters remaining the constant, the larger is, the higher the average temperature of fin surface is, the smaller the is, and the smaller the corresponding is.
By analyzing the effect law of each influencing factor on the sensible and latent heat transfer efficiencies, this study also defines the dimensionless number
. Firstly,
and
are transformed into the water dew point
of the flue gas, which has the following functional form:
Then, the dimensionless number
can be collapsed from
Tfg,
Tow
and
:
It can be seen that , so . When , i.e., , the water vapor will not condense on the fin surface, indicating that the fins are under dry conditions. When , i.e., , the fins are under wet conditions. In this case, with other parameters remaining unchanged, the larger is, the greater the amount of water vapor condensation is, the higher the is, and the lower the is.
In summary, the fin efficiency
could be expressed in the following functional form:
The numerical results of
and
under 324 groups of different wet conditions are collected through Fluent software [
44]. Then the expressions of
and
are fitted as follows. In addition, for those 324 groups of data about the fin efficiency, the mean absolute errors between the calculated and numerically computed values of Equations (18) and (19) are 0.0365 and 0.0268, respectively.
2.4. Process of thermal calculation
Taking the condensing heat exchanger as an example (as shown in
Figure 2), this study explains the calibration calculation process for the heat exchanger by applying the proposed thermal calculation model. The calculation process for each heat transfer unit is depicted in
Figure 3.
3. Structure of condensing heat exchanger
In this study, the bare-tube and annular finned-tube heat exchangers reported in the literature [
33] are chosen as the calculated objects. Three specific cases, named 0108BL, 0731BLa and 0718BL, listed in
Table 1, are selected to verify the proposed model.
In
Figure 4 (a), the bare-tube heat exchanger has the flue gas flowing through HX1, HX2, HX3, HX4 and HX5 sequentially. However, in the finned-tube heat exchanger shown in Figure (4) b, the flue gas flows through HX1, HX2, HX3 and HXFIN. HXFIN comprises the annular finned-tubes commonly used in engineering, whose structure is presented in
Figure 4 (c). All the tube bundles are arranged in-line. The flue gas flushes the tube bundle transversely outside the tube, while the cooling water flows longitudinally inside the tube, demonstrating a countercurrent flow arrangement. The structural parameters of each sub-heat exchanger are provided in
Table 2.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, Lei Han, Kaixuan Yang, Ruiyu Li, Yuhang Li, Lei Deng and Defu Che; Data curation, Lei Han, Jiahui Yang and Lei Deng; Investigation, Lei Han, Jiahui Yang and Lei Deng; Resources, Yuhang Li; Supervision, Lei Deng and Defu Che; Writing – original draft, Lei Han, Jiahui Yang and Lei Deng; Writing – review & editing, Kaixuan Yang, Ruiyu Li, Yuhang Li and Defu Che.