TECHNICAL PAPER PRESENTATION

AIR PREHEATER & HEAT EXCHANGER

ARBAAZ KHAN
16271A0310
Mechanical Engineering

JYOTHISMATHI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

AND SCIENCE

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The satisfaction that accomplishes the successful completion of any task would be
incomplete without the mention of the people who make it possible and whose constant
guidance and encouragement crown all the efforts with success.
Its our privilege and pleasure to express our profound sense of respect, gratitude
and indebtedness to our guide Mr. P.DEVENDAR, Assistant Professor, Department of
Mechanical Engineering, for his guidance, inspiration, and constant encouragement
through this mini project work.
We wish to express my deep gratitude to Mr. S.CHANDRASHEKAR,
professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karimnagar for his cooperation, in
addition to providing necessary facilities throughout the mini project work.
We sincerely extend our thanks to Dr. G.LAKSHMI NARAYANA RAO,
principal of Jyothishmathi Institute of Technology and Science, Karimnagar.
We are also thankful for the constant encouragement, support and all sorts of help
from both teaching and Non-Teaching staff of MECHANICAL DEPARTMENT to
bring out this project successfully.
We are thankful to JYOTHISHMATHI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
AND SCIENCE for providing required facilities during the project work.

ARBAAZ KHAN 16271A0310

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 ABSTRACT

This technical paper is based on theories and complications

related to air-preheater & the heat transfer surfaces used in
it. Numerous papers and sufficient amount of literature
were gone through to understand how an airpreheater is
designed and the performance parameters associated with
the same. Air-preheaters (APH) are heat exchangers, which
are used to pre-heat the air before any other process takes
place. APH finds its wide use in power plants, automobiles
and all such areas where there is a need to pre-heat the air
and save fuel. A thorough survey was also done on the
heating elements or surfaces used in air-preheaters for the
transfer of heat between cold and hot fluid. Various types
of widely used profiles were identified first and a research
was then conducted to find out how the experimental
investigation of heat transfer plates can be done. Excerpts
have also been provided regarding the design of
experimental setup for the same and the dependence of
various parameters on one another. The paper is concluded
with an opinion on the use of plate profiles for air-
preheater.

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 CONTENTS
Page No.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 2

ABSTRACT 3

CONTENTS 4

LIST OF FIGURES 5

CHAPTER 1 6

INTRODUCTION 6

1.1 DESIGN 8

1.2 PERFORMANCE 10

1.3 LEAKAGE 11

CHAPTER 2 13

2.1 HEAT EXCHANGER 13

2.2 OBJECTIVES 14

2.3 APPLICATIONS 15

2.4 PRINCIPLES 16

2.5 TYPES OF HEAT EXCHANGER 18

CONCUSSION 20

REFERENCE 21

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 LIST OF FIGURES
Page no Fig. No Fig Name

6 Fig 1 AIR PREHEATER BLOCK DIAGRAM

8 Fig 2 APH DESIGN

11 Fig 3 APH LEAKAGE

13 Fig 4 HEAT EXCHANGER

16 Fig 5 PRINCIPLES OF HEAT EXCHANGER

18 Fig 6 TYPES OF HEAT EXCHANGER

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INTRODUCTION

Air-pre heaters are used to pre-heat the air before the commencement of any other
process, for ex- combustion in boiler furnace. These are heat exchangers which are
widely used in power plants in order to increase the overall efficiency of the boiler. The
water inside the boiler has to be converted into steam for which coal is needed as a fuel
which undergoes combustion inside the furnace thus generating huge amount of heat. The
coal particles inside the furnace require minimum ignition temperature to catch fire and
stoichiometrically required quantity of air with proper intermixing. So in order to reduce
the amount of energy supplied to heat the air so that the coal catches fire, air-pre heaters
are introduced thus saving the fuel required to achieve the temperature conditions inside
the furnace. Many limitations are also associated with an air-preheater. APH is broadly
classified as recuperative and regenerative.

Figure 1

Recuperative type exchanges heat between the hot and cold fluid in a continuous process.
Under this, there exists tubular type air-pre heater (APH) and platetype air-pre heater.
Regenerative type also exchange heat between the hot and cold fluid alternatively and it
is not continuous. Under this, we have rotating-plate air-pre heater (RAPH) and
stationary plate APH. Our focus will be on regenerative air-pre heaters as these heat
exchangers find a wide use in industries. Many limitations are also associated with an air-
preheater. APH is broadly classified as recuperative and regenerative, recuperative is
further classified as tubular and plate-type whereas regenerative is categorized as rotating
plate APH and stationary plate APH.

Regenerative APH - In this, the heating elements are either rotary or stationary. The
primary problem here is the wear and tear of the plates as the incoming flue gas is dust-
laden having high ash and silica content. The second problem is the leakage of gases

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from gaps between the rotating and stationary structures, this leakage of gases affects the
performance of APH to a great extent. Seals are provided in the APH to prevent the
leakage. Another problem is the deposition of unburnt particles on the surface of APH.
As the unburnt deposits meet flowing cold air and flue gas, the ignition temperature is
reached along with sufficient amount of oxygen due to which the particles start burning.
This also sometimes causes explosions inside the APH.
Dew Point Corrosion is a problem generally seen in all kinds of air-pre heaters. The flue
gas coming out of the furnace is dust-laden containing contaminants such as chlorides,
sulphates etc. As the flue gas attains the acid saturation temperature, i.e. the temperature
at which condensation of acids takes place, sulphates, chlorides etc. condensate in the
form of acids such as sulphuric acid, hydro-chloric acid and other acids. The
condensation takes place on steel tubes and plates, the portion of the tubes or plates
which is surrounded by acids is less oxygenated, thus serving as anode while the portion
which is not surrounded by acids is more oxygenated thus serving as cathode. This
anode-cathode leads up to an electro-chemical cell, which in turn corrodes the base
material.

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DESIGN

Figure 2

As shown in Fig.1, RAPH consists of a central rotor which is connected to the element
baskets or rotating baskets. Within the element baskets, the heating elements/plates are
kept in stacks. As the rotor rotates, the baskets also rotate with the rotor surrounded by a
rotor shell. The area of the RAPH is divided into two parts as shown in Fig.2 (bi-sector),
3 parts (tri-sector) 4 parts (quad-sector) etc. In case of bi-sector APH, flue gas passes
through one sector while the cold gas passes through the other sector. The rotation of
baskets ensures that all the plates are subjected to both hot as well as cold air. The hot
flue gas heats up the plates corresponding to its sector; the same heat gets transferred to
the cold air by the plates as the basket rotates. Again, the plates get heated up as they
come across the sector of flue gas. In case of tri-sector apart from flue gas sector, we have
two other sectors for primary air (conveys pulverized coal to the furnace) and secondary
air (air for combustion).

This type of APH is also known as Ljungstrom air-preheater. Warren [4] published his
studies on Ljungstrom air preheater and based on the experimental results, he confirmed a
minimum reduction of 10% in power plants fuel consumption. Heidari et al. [5]
investigated RAPH in 3-D and treating it as a porous media with the help of fluent
software. They highlighted the effect of factors such as rotational speed of the matrix,
mass flow rate of fluid, matrix material and temperature of the incoming air on the
performance of the preheater. Wang et al. [3] made use of semi analytical method to
examine the 3-dimensional heat transfer of tri-sectional rotary air preheater. In this paper,
main focus was on the temperature distribution of the matrix. Stationary plate

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regenerative air-pre heater - The plates or heating elements are stationary in this case as
compared to a rotating air preheater. Instead, the ducting system of inlet air and outlet air
is made rotary so that all the plates are exposed to both hot and cold air. Such an air-pre
heater is also known as Rothemuhle Air-pre heater.

Tubular type APH – it consists of a nest of straight tubes that are roll expanded or welded
into tube sheets and then enclosed in a steel casing. This casing serves as an enclosure for
fluid or gas passing outside the tubes and has got both air and gas inlet-outlet openings.
An expansion joint between the floating tube sheet and casing provides an air/gas seal.
Intermediate baffle plates parallel to the tube sheets are frequently used to separate the
flow paths and eliminate tube damaging flow induced vibration [1]. The most common
flow arrangement in tubular APH is the counter flow of fluids in which flue gas passes
vertically through the tubes and air passes horizontally through one or more passes
outside the tubes. Provisions are frequently provided in the design for the bypass of cold
air or recirculation of hot air in order to control cold end corrosion and ash fouling.

Pressure drop: in recuperative air-preheaters, frictional loss during flow; inlet and exit
shock losses as well as losses during return bends in flow passage contribute towards
pressure drop. Pressure drop is directly proportional to the square of the mass flow rate of
air. Leakage: recuperative units may begin operation with essentially zero leakage, but
leakage occurs as time and thermal cycles accumulate. With regular maintenance, leakage
can be kept below 3%. Approximate air heater leakage can be determined based on gas
inlet and outlet oxygen (O2) analysis (dry basis).

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PERFORMANCE

The performance of a Ljungstrom air-preheater largely depends upon the geometry or

profile of the heating elements used in it. The profiles are designed in such a way that it
increases the efficiency of the air-preheater along with decrease in fouling rate and
pressure drop. Sreedhar Vulloju et al. [8] proved that the performance of a Ljungstrom
air-preheater gets affected with the profile of the heating elements used. They conducted
the experimental study on two different profiles: FNC (Flat Notched Crossed) and DU
(Double Undulated) elements using a wind tunnel setup.
The performance characteristics of these elements were evaluated and compared at
different Reynolds number and finally the better profile of the two was suggested. The
Ljungstrom airpreheater is widely used in power industry compared to any other
combustion air-preheater because of its compact design proven performance, reliability
and fuel flexibility. Factors contributing towards the deterioration of APH are usually seal
leakage, reduction in heat transfer capacity and absorption of heating elements used due
to fouling, plugging and corrosion. Ash carry over from economizer hopper can also
contribute to degradation of air preheater performance. The expansion joints and ducting
also undergo erosion sometimes upstream and downstream of air pre heaters. This
erosion also contributes towards the loss of margin in draught system and poor air pre
heater performance. The overhauling of an air-preheater consumes plenty of time in
overcoming all these obstructions.

APH Performance Indices.

To know whether the performance of an APH is as per the requirements or not, certain
performance indicators have been defined which are used to evaluate the performance of
the heat exchanger. A discussion on air-preheater by Ray [9] gives a brief idea about
these indices.
1) Air-in leakage: this leakage is assumed to occur entirely between air inlet and
gas outlet. It is expressed as a percentage of inlet gas flow. Various seals such as radial
seals, axial seals, circumferential seals etc are provided to prevent this leakage as leakage
reduces the efficiency of airpreheater.
2) GSE (Gas side efficiency): it is defined as the ratio of gas temperature drop
across the air-preheater to the temperature head. Where:

Gas Temperature drop = 𝑇𝑖𝑛(flue gas) − 𝑇𝑜𝑢𝑡(flue gas) (1)

Temperature head = 𝑇𝑖𝑛(flue gas) − 𝑇𝑖𝑛(air)

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LEAKAGE

Leakage is a major problem as far as rotary regenerative or Ljungstrom air-preheater is

concerned [11]. It not only reduces the APH efficiency but also increases the overall heat
rate of the power plant. Fig. 3 shows the various paths of leakage in an APH.

Figure 3

Path 1 is the direct transfer of the cold air coming from the FD (forced draught) fan to the
APH and then to the boiler. Path 2 shows the path of flue gas coming from the furnace
and being transferred to further components via ID (induced draught) fan. Path A shows
that the air coming from the FD fan surpasses the APH from the top and moves out via
ID fan. Path B shows the air from the FD fan after getting heated up by the APH moves
out of ID fan instead of going to the boiler. Path A and B represents circumferential
leakage. Path C and D represents bypass leakage in which both cold air as well as flue
gas moves to their respective destinations without coming in contact with the APH. In
order to prevent this leakage, seals are incorporated into use. Major types of seals used in
power plants are [10] are radial seals, bypass seals, axial seals and circumferential seals.
A study conducted by Kumar et al [7] on performance evaluation of air-pre heater at off-
design condition provides ample information about air-pre heater leakage and
performance improvement of the same.

Their paper analyses a simple flow model of the rotary regenerator and classifies fluid
leakage into two categories:
i) Pressure Leakage: As the highly pressurized flue gas passes through the sealing
system [12], a fraction of it gets mixed with low pressurized cold air. So here
leakage is by virtue of pressure difference.

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ii) Carry over leakage: This occurs when a part of gas stream trapped in voids or
empty spaces of the rotor element gets carried to the other gas stream during
rotation. The carry over leakage can occur in both the direction. Leakage drift
[7] - Air-preheaters are designed with a certain percentage or allowance in
leakage. Leakage drift refers to the increase in leakage of air to flue gas due to
the deteriorating condition of the sealing system used. Many air-preheaters are
provided with additional space which allows them to accommodate extra
heating elements in case underperformance is observed. But all air-preheaters
are not provided with additional space. In such cases, the old heating elements
are replaced with a new set of heating

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HEAT EXCHANGER

In a heat exchanger, heat energy is transferred from one body or fluid stream to another.
In the design of heat exchange equipment, heat transfer equations are applied to calculate
this transfer of energy so as to carry it out efficiently and under controlled conditions.

The equipment goes under many names, such as boilers, pasteurizers, jacketed pans,
freezers, air heaters, cookers, ovens and so on. The range is too great to list completely.
Heat exchangers are found widely scattered throughout the food process industry.

Figure 4

A heat exchanger is a device that is used to transfer thermal energy (enthalpy) between
two or more fluids, between a solid surface and a fluid, or between solid particulates and
a fluid, at different temperatures and in thermal contact

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OBJECTIVES

Recognize numerous types of heat exchangers, and classify them

• Develop an awareness of fouling on surfaces, and determine the
overall heat transfer coefficient for a heat exchanger
• Perform a general energy analysis on heat exchangers
• Obtain a relation for the logarithmic mean temperature difference for
use in the LMTD method, and modify it for different types of heat
exchangers using the correction factor
• Develop relations for effectiveness, and analyze heat exchangers when
outlet temperatures are not known using the effectiveness-NTU
method Know the primary considerations in the selection of heat
exchangers.

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 APPLICATIONS

Heat exchangers use containment vessels to heat or cool one fluid by transferring
heat between it and another fluid. Users of heat exchangers include chemical,
petrochemical, oil & gas, power generation, refrigeration, pharmaceuticals,
HVAC, food & beverage processing and pulp & paper industries.
A plate heat exchanger is a specialized design well suited to transferring heat
between medium and low pressure fluids. Plate heat exchangers contain thin
plates joined together with a small space between them allowing fluid to flow
between a larger surface area. They are highly efficient and more compact in
design than other forms of heat exchangers.
Shell and tube heat exchangers are well suited for high pressure applications. They
consist of a shell with a bundle of tubes inside it transferring heat from within and
around the bundle. Air cooled heat exchangers are pressure vessels which cool a
circulating fluid within finned tubes by forcing ambient air over the exterior of the
tubes.

• Heat Exchangers prevent car engine overheating and increase

efficiency
• Heat exchangers are used in Industry for heat transfer
• Heat exchangers are used in AC and furnaces •
• The closed-type exchanger is the most popular one. •
• One example of this type is the Double pipe exchanger

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PRINCIPLES

In power plants or engines, exhaust gases often contain heat that's heading
uselessly away into the open air. That's a waste of energy and something a
heat exchanger can certainly reduce (though not eliminate entirely—some
heat is always going to be lost). The way to solve this problem is with heat
exchangers positioned inside the exhaust tail pipes or smokestacks. As the
hot exhaust gases drift upward, they brush past copper fins with water
flowing through them. The water carries the heat away, back into the plant.
There, it might be recycled directly, maybe warming the cold gases that feed
into the engine or furnace, saving the energy that would otherwise be needed
to heat them up. Or it could be put to some other good use, for example,
heating an office near the smokestack.

Figure 5

In buses, fluid used to cool down the diesel engine is often passed through a heat
exchanger and the heat it reclaims is used to warm cold air from outside that is
pumped up from the floor of the passenger compartment. That saves the need for
having additional, wasteful electric heaters inside the bus. A car radiator is another
kind of heat exchanger. Water that cools the engine flows through the radiator,
which has lots of parallel, aluminum fins open to the air. As the car drives along,
cold air blowing past the radiator removes some of the heat, cooling the water and

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heating the air and keeping the engine working efficiently. The radiator's waste
heat is used to heat the passenger compartment, just like on a bus.

If you have an energy-efficient shower, it might have a heat exchanger installed in

the wastewater outlet. As the water drips past your body and down the plug, it runs
through the copper coils of a heat exchanger. Meanwhile, cold water that's feeding
into the shower to be heated pumps up past the same coils, not mixing with the
dirty water but picking up some of its waste heat and warming slightly—so the
shower doesn't need to heat it so much.

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TYPES OF HEAT EXCHANGER
All heat exchangers do the same job—passing heat from one fluid to
another—but they work in many different ways. The two most common
kinds of heat exchanger are the shell-and-tube and plate/fin. In shell and tube
heat exchangers, one fluid flows through a set of metal tubes while the
second fluid passes through a sealed shell that surrounds them. That's the
design shown in our diagram up above. The two fluids can flow in the same
direction (known as parallel flow), in opposite directions (counterflow or
counter-current), or at right angles (cross flow). Boilers in steam
locomotives work this way. Plate/fin heat exchangers have lots of thin metal
plates or fins with a large surface area (because that exchanges more heat
more quickly); heat exchangers in gas furnaces (gas boilers) work this way.

Figure 6

Heat exchangers used to minimize heat losses from buildings, engines, and
machines are sometimes called recuperators or regenerators. These are two
quite different things. A recuperator is typically used to capture heat that
would otherwise be lost, for example, as stuffy air is ventilated from a
building: cold, incoming fluid is channeled in the opposite direction to
warm, outgoing fluid to minimize the heat loss. The two fluids flow through
separate channels, remain separate, and do not mix. Since incoming and
outgoing fluids move in opposite directions, recuperators are examples of
counterflow heat exchangers. The heat exchanger in a heat-recovery
ventilation (HRV) system is an everyday example of a recuperator.

A regenerator is similar, but the incoming and outgoing fluids move through
the same channel in opposite directions and at different times. So the warm

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fluid will flow out through the regenerator, giving up some of its heat on the
way. Later, the cold fluid will flow in through the same channel, back
through the regenerator, picking up some of the heat stored there. A
regenerator is one of the key parts in a highly efficient form of power called
a Stirling engine, in which a piston pushes trapped gas back and forth
between a heat source (such as a fire) and a place where the heat is lost ("a
sink"). The regenerator reduces the heat that would otherwise be lost as the
engine cycles back and forth.

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CONCLUSION

After going through numerous study material, research papers and

experimental work done in the field of air-preheater and heating elements,
the fact got consolidated that the heating elements forms the heart of the air-
preheater and the performance of the APH gets significantly affected with
the change in geometry of the plates. Although when it comes to the
experimental investigation of heat transfer characteristics of heating
elements used in air-preheater, less but significant work has been done in the
field so we couldn’t find much research papers on this topic. It is possible to
determine the heat transfer characteristics of the plates using a wind tunnel
like setup which aims to simulate the conditions of an air-preheater.
Heat exchangers are widely used in industries both for cooling and
heating large scale industrial processes. The type and size of heat exchangers
used can be tailored to suit a process depending on the type of fluid, its
phase,
temperature, density, viscosity, pressures, chemical composition and various
other thermodynamic properties.
Choosing the right heat exchanger requires some knowledge of the
different heat exchanger types, as well as the environment in which the unit
must operate. Typically in the manufacturing industry, several different
types
of heat exchangers are used for just one process or system to derive the final
product. With sufficient knowledge of heat exchanger types and operating
requirements, an appropriate selection can be made to optimize the process.

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REFERENCES

[1] P.N. Sapkal, P.R. Baviskar, M.J. Sable, S.B. Barve. To optimise air-preheater
design for better
performance, New aspects of fluid mechanics, Heat Transfer and Environment.
[2] Wang.H. Analysis on Thermal stress deformation of Rotary Air-preheater in a
thermal power
plant. Korean J. Chem. Eng, Vol. 26, 833-839, 2009.
[3] Wang HY, Zhao LL, Xu ZG, Chun WG, Kim HT. The study on heat transfer
model of tri-sectional
rotary air preheater based on the semi-analytical method. Appl Therm Eng
2008;28:1882–8.
DOI10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2007.11.023.
[4] I. Warren. Ljungstrom heat exchangers for waste heat recovery. Heat Recovery
Syst. CHE 2 (3)
(1982) 257-271.
[5] Matthew Lie, ... Brent R. Young, in Computer Aided Chemical Engineering,
2018
[6] Monoj K. Gupta, in Practical Guide to Vegetable Oil Processing (Second
Edition), 2017

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