A falling film evaporator is an industrial device to concentrate solutions, especially with heat sensitive components. The evaporator is a special type of heat exchanger.
A falling film evaporator is an industrial device to concentrate solutions, especially with heat sensitive components. The evaporator is a special type of heat exchanger.
In general evaporation takes place inside vertical tubes, but there are also applications where the process fluid evaporates on the outside of horizontal or vertical tubes. In all cases, the process fluid to be evaporated flows downwards by gravity as a continuous film. The fluid will create a film along the tube walls, progressing downwards (falling) - hence the name.
The fluid distributor has to be designed carefully in order to maintain an even liquid distribution for all tubes along which the solution falls. A typical distributor is shown in Fig. 2; these distributors are usually called ferrules due to their concentric shape. In the majority of applications the heating medium is placed on the outside of the tubes. High heat transfer coefficients are required in order to achieve equally balanced heat transfer resistances. Therefore, condensing steam is commonly used as a heating medium.
For internally evaporating fluids, separation between the liquid phase (the solution) and the gaseous phase takes place inside the tubes. In order to maintain conservation of mass as this process proceeds, the downward vapor velocity increases, increasing the shear force acting on the liquid film and therefore also the velocity of the solution. The result can be a high film velocity of a progressively thinner film resulting in increasingly turbulent flow. The combination of these effects allows very high heat transfer coefficients.
The heat transfer coefficient on the evaporating side of the tube is mostly determined by the hydrodynamic flow conditions of the film. For low mass flows or high viscosities the film flow can be laminar, in which case heat transfer is controlled purely by conduction through the film. Therefore in this condition the heat transfer coefficient decreases with increased mass flow. With increased mass flow the film becomes wavy laminar and then turbulent. Under turbulent conditions the heat transfer coefficient increases with increased flow.
Evaporation takes place at very low mean temperature differences between heating medium and process stream, typically between 3 - 6K, therefore these devices are ideal for heat recovery in multi stage processes. [1] [2] A further advantage of the falling film evaporator is the very short residence time of the liquid and the absence of superheating of the same. Not considering the vapour separator, the residence time inside the tubes is measured in seconds, making it ideal for heat-sensitive products such as milk, fruit juice, pharmaceuticals, and many others.
Falling film evaporators are also characterised by very low pressure drops; therefore, they are often used in deep vacuum applications.
Due to the intimate contact of the liquid with the heating surface, these evaporators are sensitive to fouling from precipitating solids. Low liquid velocity at the inlet is usually not sufficient to perform an effective self-cleaning of the tubes. Falling film evaporators are therefore used in clean, non-precipitating liquids. A typical application, in chemical industry, is for concentration of caustic soda.
Falling film evaporators have a number of advantages over their flooded evaporator counterparts.
They require a lower charge, as the entire shell (in the case of horizontal evaporators) or all the tubes (in the case of a vertical evaporator) need not be filled with liquid as a thin film is now used to cover the surfaces. In industries such as heating and air-conditioning this can save significant money due to the high costs of a refrigerant charge. [3]
Falling film evaporators also show improved heat transfer characteristics over their flooded counterparts, [3] particularly in cases with low heat flux.
A number of disadvantages exist, primarily being the comparable lack of understanding of falling film evaporators compared to flooded evaporators, particularly for horizontal falling film evaporators. Furthermore the fluid distribution for horizontal falling film evaporators is a challenge, as the performance is severely limited if an uneven distribution of film over the tubes is created. [3]
Horizontal falling film evaporators have a number of potential advantages over their vertical counterparts in the petrochemical industry, such as the ability to use tubes with external enhancements; while internally-enhanced tubes are available for vertical falling film evaporators, external enhancements are typically superior for boiling applications. The chief disadvantage of horizontal falling film evaporators is that if a corrosive or fouling liquid is to be evaporated, it will have to placed on the shell side. [3] This is against best practice, as it is easier to clean fouling found on the inside of tubes rather than the outside. [4]
In fluid dynamics, laminar flow is characterized by fluid particles following smooth paths in layers, with each layer moving smoothly past the adjacent layers with little or no mixing. At low velocities, the fluid tends to flow without lateral mixing, and adjacent layers slide past one another like playing cards. There are no cross-currents perpendicular to the direction of flow, nor eddies or swirls of fluids. In laminar flow, the motion of the particles of the fluid is very orderly with particles close to a solid surface moving in straight lines parallel to that surface. Laminar flow is a flow regime characterized by high momentum diffusion and low momentum convection.
In the study of heat transfer, Newton's law of cooling is a physical law which states that
The rate of heat loss of a body is directly proportional to the difference in the temperatures between the body and its environment.
A heat exchanger is a system used to transfer heat between a source and a working fluid. Heat exchangers are used in both cooling and heating processes. The fluids may be separated by a solid wall to prevent mixing or they may be in direct contact. They are widely used in space heating, refrigeration, air conditioning, power stations, chemical plants, petrochemical plants, petroleum refineries, natural-gas processing, and sewage treatment. The classic example of a heat exchanger is found in an internal combustion engine in which a circulating fluid known as engine coolant flows through radiator coils and air flows past the coils, which cools the coolant and heats the incoming air. Another example is the heat sink, which is a passive heat exchanger that transfers the heat generated by an electronic or a mechanical device to a fluid medium, often air or a liquid coolant.
Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy (heat) between physical systems. Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as thermal conduction, thermal convection, thermal radiation, and transfer of energy by phase changes. Engineers also consider the transfer of mass of differing chemical species, either cold or hot, to achieve heat transfer. While these mechanisms have distinct characteristics, they often occur simultaneously in the same system.
A heat pipe is a heat-transfer device that employs phase transition to transfer heat between two solid interfaces.
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In thermodynamics, the heat transfer coefficient or film coefficient, or film effectiveness, is the proportionality constant between the heat flux and the thermodynamic driving force for the flow of heat. It is used in calculating the heat transfer, typically by convection or phase transition between a fluid and a solid. The heat transfer coefficient has SI units in watts per square meter per kelvin (W/m2/K).
Fouling is the accumulation of unwanted material on solid surfaces. The fouling materials can consist of either living organisms (biofouling) or a non-living substance. Fouling is usually distinguished from other surface-growth phenomena in that it occurs on a surface of a component, system, or plant performing a defined and useful function and that the fouling process impedes or interferes with this function.
A plate heat exchanger is a type of heat exchanger that uses metal plates to transfer heat between two fluids. This has a major advantage over a conventional heat exchanger in that the fluids are exposed to a much larger surface area because the fluids are spread out over the plates. This facilitates the transfer of heat, and greatly increases the speed of the temperature change. Plate heat exchangers are now common and very small brazed versions are used in the hot-water sections of millions of combination boilers. The high heat transfer efficiency for such a small physical size has increased the domestic hot water (DHW) flowrate of combination boilers. The small plate heat exchanger has made a great impact in domestic heating and hot-water. Larger commercial versions use gaskets between the plates, whereas smaller versions tend to be brazed.
In fluid mechanics, multiphase flow is the simultaneous flow of materials with two or more thermodynamic phases. Virtually all processing technologies from cavitating pumps and turbines to paper-making and the construction of plastics involve some form of multiphase flow. It is also prevalent in many natural phenomena.
An evaporator is a type of heat exchanger device that facilitates evaporation by utilizing conductive and convective heat transfer to provide the necessary thermal energy for phase transition from liquid to vapor. Within evaporators, a circulating liquid is exposed to an atmospheric or reduced pressure environment, causing it to boil at a lower temperature compared to normal atmospheric boiling.
In fluid mechanics, the Reynolds number is a dimensionless quantity that helps predict fluid flow patterns in different situations by measuring the ratio between inertial and viscous forces. At low Reynolds numbers, flows tend to be dominated by laminar (sheet-like) flow, while at high Reynolds numbers, flows tend to be turbulent. The turbulence results from differences in the fluid's speed and direction, which may sometimes intersect or even move counter to the overall direction of the flow. These eddy currents begin to churn the flow, using up energy in the process, which for liquids increases the chances of cavitation.
In engineering, physics, and chemistry, the study of transport phenomena concerns the exchange of mass, energy, charge, momentum and angular momentum between observed and studied systems. While it draws from fields as diverse as continuum mechanics and thermodynamics, it places a heavy emphasis on the commonalities between the topics covered. Mass, momentum, and heat transport all share a very similar mathematical framework, and the parallels between them are exploited in the study of transport phenomena to draw deep mathematical connections that often provide very useful tools in the analysis of one field that are directly derived from the others.
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A climbing/falling film plate evaporator is a specialized type of evaporator in which a thin film of liquid is passed over a rising and falling plate to allow the evaporation process to occur. It is an extension of the falling film evaporator, and has application in any field where the liquid to be evaporated cannot withstand extended exposure to high temperatures, such as the concentration of fruit juices.
Circulation evaporators are a type of evaporating unit designed to separate mixtures unable to be evaporated by a conventional evaporating unit. Circulation evaporation incorporates the use of both heat exchangers and flash separation units in conjunction with circulation of the solvent in order to remove liquid mixtures without conventional boiling. There are two types of Circulation Evaporation; Natural Circulation Evaporators and Forced Circulation Evaporators, both of which are still currently used in industry today, although forced Circulation systems, which have a circulation pump as opposed to natural systems with no driving force, have a much wider range of appropriate uses.
A rising film or vertical long tube evaporator is a type of evaporator that is essentially a vertical shell and tube heat exchanger. The liquid being evaporated is fed from the bottom into long tubes and heated with steam condensing on the outside of the tube from the shell side. This is to produce steam and vapour within the tube bringing the liquid inside to a boil. The vapour produced then presses the liquid against the walls of the tubes and causes the ascending force of this liquid. As more vapour is formed, the centre of the tube will have a higher velocity which forces the remaining liquid against the tube wall forming a thin film which moves upwards. This phenomenon of the rising film gives the evaporator its name.
A falling-film column is a particular chemical equipment used to achieve mass and heat transfer between two fluid phases.
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