Performance of Plate Fin Heat Exchanger at Cryogenic Temperature

Abstract

The objective of this study is to provide experimental data that could be used to predict the effectiveness and performance of a plate fin heat exchange for low temperature conditions. In this study, plate fin heat exchangers are tested with a variation of the mass flow rate.
Plate fin heat exchangers are widely used in cryogenic liquefaction. Such heat exchangers have high fin density and offer narrow passages for the fluid flow which often leads to significant pressure drop. The stringent requirement of high effectiveness and excessive pressure drop occurring in plate fin heat exchanger makes it necessary to test the heat exchanger before using in any system. An experimental setup is made in the laboratory to test the plate fin heat exchanger at cryogenic temperature. In this setup compressed nitrogen gas will be passed through the plate fin heat exchanger as hot stream. The hot stream gas will be passed through a liquid nitrogen coil heat exchanger to cool the high pressure gas. The cold gas is then passed as a reverse stream of the plate fin heat exchanger. The experimental setup is mounted to the measurement instrument like RTDs, Pressure gauge, Differential pressure gauge, Orifice plate flow meter etc. The effectiveness of heat exchange will be calculated from the measured temperatures directly from the experiment. Also the pressure drop will be obtained from the experiments. The effectiveness and pressure drop data is simulated with Aspen software and also compared with other correlations to confirm the accuracy of the experiment.