FILE NO.: 138.

652 DATE: August 15, 1964 SUPERSEDES: NEW DATE:

Finned tubing (left) bulged and burst from the effects of water hammer in the tubes of a heat exchanger.

Operation and Maintenance of heat exchangers

by Fred Truman, S. A. Armstrong Limited (T h e f o l l o w i n g p a p e r w a s p r e s e n t e d b y M r . T r u m a n a t the Power Engineering Seminar & Show, held at Toronto, November 6th to 8th, 1963) This discussion will cover shell and tube type heat exchangers, in which heat is transferred from one fluid to another, and the transfer surface is provided by thin-walled tubes. Whether an exchanger is used in the processing of a product, as in the petro-chemical and similar industries, or whether it is used to furnish hot water for an apartment house or for heating an office building, proper sizing is most important. Sizing affects not only the economics of the unit (first cost, operating cost, maintenance cost, and space requirements) but also its proper control. If a unit is too small, it will not meet the demands at peak load. High flow rates may erode the tubes or create velocities which will cause vibration and failure of thin-walled tubes and other parts of the exchanger. Tube velocities should be limited to 6 feet per second for constant use, and are usually limited to 5 feet per second in general use. Shell velocities should not be over 4 feet per second when the shell is baffled. Too high velocities will scour the metal
Typical illustration of tube damage caused by water

hammer on the shell side of an exchanger.

surfaces of their protective coating naturally formed leaving them vulnerable to corrosion. If an exchanger is oversized, it will be sluggish in operation. It may rapidly become fouled in some sections due to too low velocity and the depositing of silt, scale, or other impurities in the fluid being handled. Under such deposits chemical actions sometimes take place and thin tube walls are very vulnerable while thick sections, such as tubesheets and shell, can withstand quite severs corrosive attack before failure. In an exchanger with baffles in the shell, scale or other foreign matter sometimes builds up around the tubes where they pass through the holes in the baffles. Small crevices thus formed invite chemical action or electrolytic action, often eating holes right through the tubes at these points. In the ideal exchanger operation the demand is constant, the heat supply is constant, and the rate of fouling is known. This is usually the case in modern processing plants, and the exchanger can be designed economically to do the job efficiently over a period of time between planned shut down periods for cleaning and inspection. Measurement of the transferred is usually a simple operation and, if taken at various times, it is easy to derive the rate of fouling. While adequate methods of maintenance are widely used in the highly organized process industries, a very large percentage of heat exchangers are not properly inspected and cleaned. The result is that at some time when least expected, and usually when least convenient, the unit has to be taken out of operation for cleaning, repair or complete replacement. When units are vital to an operation or when their shut-down would create a serious situation, some stand-by arrangement should be made.
Reprinted from CANADIAN POWER ENGINEER

Often the use of two smaller exchangers in parallel rather than one large one would allow a plant to carry on with half or two-thirds load, if one of the exchangers were out of commission for repair or inspection. Most heat exchangers used in the hot water heating of buildings give very little trouble and require a minimum of maintenance over many years. This is because they are not subjected to intrusion of fouling fluids. The troublesome oxygen and other gases are purged on initial start-up, and the small amounts admitted with normal make-up water are easily controlled by low cost air separation devices installed in hydronic (water heating) systems. Heat exchangers used in the supply of domestic hot water, however are sometimes troublesome. Most city and town water contains impurities in varying amounts, particularly soluble salts which crystallize out of solution in the 130F to 180F temperature range when heated. The scale thus formed settles throughout the system, but particularly in or on the heat exchanger tubes, and greatly decreases the efficiency of the heat transfer surface. A suitable watersoftener installation will usually help this problem. Also, if the salts produced are soft, they may be easily flushed out with water. Most mechanical troubles with domestic water heaters, whether shell and tube or the common immersion tank heaters, are encountered at cold start-up. A heat exchanger should be heated up slowly, with the cold fluid entering first and the hot fluid, water or steam, gradually brought in by manual control, until the required operating temperature is reached. Only then should the automatic control be cut in. In the case of steam as the heating medium, the steam trap should be manually bypassed until the exchanger is switched to automatic control. Costly damage can result if care is not exercised in the start-up of a heat exchanger. Water hammer often results when a large quantity of steam is allowed to condense rapidly in an enclosure. Thin-walled tubes are very vulnerable. Copper tubing is used extensively and is a relatively soft metal. Water hammer is a type of implosion effect particularly pronounced when low pressure steam is used, one reason being the high volume ratio of steam and water at low pressure. For instance: Volume of 1lb of steam at 5 psig is about 20 cu ft Volume of 1lb of water (condensate) is.0168 cu ft This volume ratio of 1200 to 1 gives us some idea of how the tremendous hammer effect may be produced when there is enough transfer surface present to remove the latent heat of vaporization rapidly. Slugs of water are hurled about in the vacuum created by condensation, and one can visualize the damage possible to fragile tubes. When this hammer effect has occurred in the shell of an exchanger, the damage pattern is quite regular. Tubes are crushed in on top of the tube bundle, usually at about two-

thirds of the distance from the steam entry nozzle toward the other end of the tube bundle. So far, there seems to be no technical explanation for this phenomenon. From study and examination of damaged exchangers, and investigation of their operation, we have come to the conclusion the following is roughly what happens: In a water heater using steam in the shell, when the demand for hot water ends, the steam control valve closes, but there is a good supply of steam left in the shell of the exchanger. As this steam condenses, the pressure drops, often below atmospheric or even practically to full vacuum. This prevents condensate from leaving the shell and sometimes even syphons in condensate from the line beyond the trap. Now, when the steam valve opens again and admits steam to the shell, the rapid condensation, as it strikes the cold condensate, causes steams of water to rise, hitting the top of the shell and bouncing onto the top tubes. Sometimes the breaks in the tubes look as though a 4" spike had been driven through the top side. Other times the tubes may be crushed as if with a blunt chisel over lengths of a few inches or up to two feet. Usually, the installation of a vacuum breaker on the shell or in the steam inlet pipe adjacent to the shell will prevent this occurrence. Use a good trap of adequate size, and condensate piping of ample size. Be sure to size the trap to suit the steam pressure in the shell, not by the pressure of the main system. Float and thermostatic traps are recommended, so that air and incondensible gases are purged with the condensate. When hammer has occurred in the tubes of an exchanger, the tubes are bulged in various locations and short bends often broken. Sometimes the tubes split if bulged far enough. We know that the ultimate bursting strength of the tubing is in the neighbourhood of 2000 psi, so this is ample proof of the violence caused by water hammer. Cleaning If scaling or other fouling is expected, provisions in the piping can be made to allow connections for flushing out or chemical circulation cleaning. These openings, of course, would be normally plugged. In large plants where there are a number of exchangers it may be profitable to have a tank of cleaning fluid of suitable type and a circulating pump and rubber hose for periodic hook-up for flushing out of shell and/or tubes. Makers of commercial cleaning compounds would be glad to advise in this respect. Then there are qualified organizations who can furnish a complete service of apparatus and experienced personnel to circulate inhibited acid solutions for the removal of hard scales and sludge not easily removed otherwise. Small exchangers that can be easily removed from the line, and small tube bundles, can be sent to organizations which do such cleaning on their premises.

FORM NO.: 2772

S. A. Armstrong Limited 1963