CN112762734A

CN112762734A - Heat exchanger and heat exchange system including the same

Info

Publication number: CN112762734A
Application number: CN201911076230.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 吴扬
Original assignee: Carrier Corp
Current assignee: Carrier Corp
Priority date: 2019-11-06
Filing date: 2019-11-06
Publication date: 2021-05-07
Also published as: US20210131752A1; EP3819563A1

Abstract

The present invention relates to a heat exchanger and a heat exchange system including the same. The heat exchanger includes a housing and heat exchange tubes located within the housing, and further includes a deflector disposed within the housing and including a receiving portion disposed between two adjacent rows of heat exchange tubes and extending substantially horizontally along a length of the housing for receiving a liquid, and a guide portion disposed for guiding the liquid received by the receiving portion to a bottom of the housing interior. The technical scheme of the invention is easy to manufacture, install and maintain, can overcome the adverse effect caused by the tube bundle flooding effect, can save the material consumption of the heat exchange tube, ensures the working performance of the system and has obvious practicability.

Description

Heat exchanger and heat exchange system including the same

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of heat exchange, in particular to a heat exchanger and a heat exchange system comprising the same.

Background

The prior art has provided various types of heat exchange devices, apparatus or systems that have found widespread use in many industrial fields, locations, etc., and that can provide great convenience. However, these prior heat exchange devices, apparatus or systems still suffer from drawbacks and deficiencies such as structural configuration, heat exchange effectiveness, operational performance, manufacturing, installation and maintenance, which can be further improved and optimized. For example, when some centrifugal condensers are operated, the value of the heat transfer coefficient outside the tubes of the heat exchange tubes in the lower half of the condenser may be rapidly reduced due to the occurrence of the bundle flooding Effect (flooding Effect), thereby affecting the heat exchange efficiency and the operation safety of the system. This disadvantage is exacerbated when the condenser shell is relatively large in size and the number of tube rows is relatively large.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the above, the present invention provides a heat exchanger and a heat exchange system including the same, which may solve or at least alleviate one or more of the above problems and other problems in the prior art.

First, according to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a heat exchanger including a housing and heat exchange tubes located in the housing, the heat exchanger further including a deflector provided in the housing and including a receiving portion arranged between two adjacent rows of the heat exchange tubes and extending substantially horizontally along a length direction of the housing for receiving liquid, and a guide portion arranged for guiding the liquid received by the receiving portion to a bottom inside the housing.

In the heat exchanger according to the present invention, optionally, the receiving portion includes a first portion and a second portion at the same height or different heights in a height direction of the housing, and the guide portion is provided as a guide groove located between the first portion and the second portion and toward a bottom inside the housing.

In the heat exchanger according to the present invention, optionally, at least a part of the receiving portion is configured to have a profile that urges the liquid to flow toward the guiding portion.

In the heat exchanger according to the present invention, optionally, the receiving portion is configured such that an end portion of at least one side thereof is higher than a middle portion of the receiving portion in a height direction of the housing, and a gas flow passage is formed between the end portion and an inner wall of the housing, and the guide portion is connected to the receiving portion and arranged at the middle portion of the receiving portion.

In the heat exchanger according to the present invention, optionally, the receiving portion is arranged such that the number of heat exchange tubes located thereabove is not greater than the number of heat exchange tubes located therebelow.

In the heat exchanger according to the present invention, optionally, the receiver is arranged at a first preset distance from a most adjacent row of heat exchange tubes located above the receiver and at a second preset distance from a most adjacent row of heat exchange tubes located below the receiver, the second preset distance being not less than the first preset distance.

In the heat exchanger according to the present invention, optionally, the receiving portion is arranged to extend up to both end tube sheets of the heat exchanger.

In the heat exchanger according to the present invention, optionally, the heat exchanger further comprises:

a support disposed within the housing for supporting at least a portion of the heat exchange tube; and/or

A superheated gas diffuser arranged above the heat exchange tubes for directing a fluid entering from the inlet of the heat exchanger to be diverted from both sides of the superheated gas diffuser; and/or

A supercooling chamber disposed inside the case and communicating with the outlet of the heat exchanger, the liquid at the bottom of the inside of the case entering the supercooling chamber through an opening at the bottom of the supercooling chamber.

In the heat exchanger according to the invention, optionally, the heat exchanger is provided with at least two supports, the flow guiding device being arranged at least between two adjacent supports.

Secondly, according to another aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a heat exchange system comprising a heat exchanger as described in any one of the above.

The principles, features, characteristics, advantages and the like of various aspects according to the present invention will be clearly understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. For example, compared with the prior art, the technical scheme of the invention is easy to manufacture, install and maintain, has low use cost, can overcome the adverse effect caused by the flooding effect of the tube bundle, saves the material consumption of the heat exchange tube, and can effectively ensure and improve the working performance, safety and reliability of the system. The invention has remarkable practicability.

Drawings

The invention will be described in further detail with reference to the drawings and examples, which are designed solely for the purpose of illustration and are not necessarily drawn to scale, but rather are intended to conceptually illustrate the structural configurations disclosed herein.

Fig. 1 is a schematic internal perspective view of an embodiment of a heat exchanger according to the present invention with a housing removed and with heat exchange tubes omitted.

FIG. 2 is a side cross-sectional view of the embodiment of the heat exchanger shown in FIG. 1.

Fig. 3 is a comparative explanatory diagram in which "tube bundle flooding effect" in the condenser is schematically shown by experimental test data, and the behavior of the heat exchange coefficient outside the tubes of the heat exchange tubes located at the bottom after application of the embodiment of the heat exchanger of the present invention is schematically shown by broken lines in the diagram.

Detailed Description

First, it is to be noted that the structural compositions, features, advantages, and the like of the heat exchanger of the present invention and the heat exchange system including the same will be specifically described below by way of example, however, all the descriptions are for illustrative purposes only and do not constitute any limitation of the present invention. The terms "first," second, "and the like, as used herein, are used for distinguishing between similar elements and not intended to imply a sequential or relative importance, and the terms" connected (or connected, etc.) encompass a direct connection of a particular element to another element and/or a direct connection of another element, the term "substantially" is intended to include insubstantial errors associated with measurement of the particular element (e.g., can include the range of 8%, ± 5%, or ± 2% of a given value, etc.), the terms "upper," "lower," "top," "bottom," "inner," "outer," derivatives thereof, and the like, unless otherwise expressly stated, are intended to be associated with an orientation in the drawings in which the invention may assume various alternative orientations.

Furthermore, the present invention allows any combination or subtraction between any individual features described or implicit in the embodiments mentioned herein, yet allowing further embodiments of the invention that may not be mentioned directly herein. In addition, for simplicity of the drawings, identical or similar parts and features may be indicated in the same drawing only in one or several places.

Referring to fig. 1 and 2 in combination, there is schematically illustrated an embodiment of a heat exchanger according to the present invention, which may be used as a heat exchange device such as a shell and tube condenser in a heat exchange system, depending on the application requirements.

As shown in fig. 1-2, in the heat exchanger 100, it may include a housing 1, a deflector 10, a heat exchange tube 20, a support 30, and a superheated gas dispersing device 40. The heat exchange tubes 20 are arranged inside the housing 1, and the transfer of thermal energy is accomplished by exchanging heat between a first fluid (e.g., liquid, gas or a mixture thereof, etc.) flowing through the tubes of these heat exchange tubes 20 and a second fluid (e.g., liquid, gas or a mixture thereof, etc.) entering the interior space of the housing 1 from an inlet 2 at the top of the heat exchanger 100 and flowing out from an outlet 3 at the bottom of the heat exchanger 100. In practical applications, the specific number, installation layout, structural size and the like of the heat exchange tubes 20 in the shell 1 can be set or adjusted according to specific requirements. For example, the heat exchange tubes 20 may be arranged in a stack to form a two, three or more row tube bundle array, wherein the number of heat exchange tubes 20 in each row may or may not be the same as each other.

The following description will be made by way of example in connection with the embodiments shown in the above drawings. As shown in fig. 2, for the second fluid, it will enter the interior of the heat exchanger 100 through the inlet 2 along the direction of arrow a, and since the superheated gas diffuser 40 (for example, in the form of a baffle or the like) is disposed at the position near the inlet 2 and above the heat exchange tubes 20, the second fluid will be blocked by the superheated gas diffuser 40 at this position, so as to flow downward from the two sides respectively in the directions of arrows drawn on the two sides of the superheated gas diffuser 40 in fig. 2, then contact with the heat exchange tubes 20 arranged in a tube bundle below the superheated gas diffuser 40 respectively to realize heat energy exchange, and finally flow outward from the outlet 3 of the heat exchanger 100. In the above heat energy exchange process, the second fluid may be directly condensed on the outer surface of at least a part of the heat exchange tubes 20 to form liquid (which may exist in the form of "liquid drops" in many cases), and the condensed liquid will drop to the bottom in the shell 1 and accumulate more and more as the operation time of the system increases, so that the heat exchange tubes 20 close to the bottom generate a so-called "tube bundle flooding effect" due to the influence of the condensed liquid, for example, the outer surface of some heat exchange tubes 20 is even completely wrapped by the condensed liquid, which causes the surface heat exchange coefficient of the above heat exchange tubes 20 to be seriously reduced, thereby causing the system heat exchange efficiency, the operation performance and the like to be obviously reduced.

In the present heat exchanger 100, the above problem can be effectively solved by providing the deflector 10. Specifically, as shown in fig. 1 and 2, the deflector 10 is disposed inside the housing 1, and may be provided with a receiving portion 11 and a guiding portion 12. The receiving portion 11 and the guiding portion 12 may be connected, but they may not be connected, for example, the guiding portion 12 may be disposed directly below the receiving portion 11 and fixed to the housing 1 or other components in the housing 1, as long as it is ensured that the guiding portion 12 can guide the liquid received by the receiving portion 11 to the bottom portion 14 of the housing 1. Depending on the application requirements, the receiving portion 11 may be disposed between any two adjacent rows of heat exchange tubes 20, which will extend substantially horizontally along the length direction L of the shell 1 (e.g., optionally extending all the way within the shell 1 to the tube sheets 50 at both ends of the heat exchanger 100) for receiving the above-mentioned condensed liquid. The liquid received by the receiving portion 11 will then be guided to the bottom 14 of the shell 1 by the guiding portion 12, and thus the adverse effect of the lower half heat exchange tubes 20 due to the presence of the "tube bundle flooding effect" can also be effectively reduced.

In an alternative case, a supercooling chamber 13 may be provided in the casing 1, and a heat exchange pipe may be provided in the supercooling chamber 13. The supercooling chamber 13 is also communicated with the outlet 3 of the heat exchanger, and the liquid introduced into the supercooling chamber 13 can be discharged to the outside through the outlet 3. The liquid at the bottom 14 may enter the subcooling chamber 13 through, for example, one or more openings 15 provided in the bottom of the subcooling chamber 13 and may then exchange heat with the first fluid in the heat exchange tubes 20 located in the subcooling chamber 13 to produce a degree of subcooling, thereby enabling an increase in cooling capacity. In practical applications, the supercooling chamber 13 may be configured in any suitable shape to meet various possible requirements, for example, a rectangular parallelepiped, a cube, a cylinder, an ellipsoid or an irregular shape may be adopted. Furthermore, the present invention also allows the supercooling chamber 13 to be disposed at any suitable position inside the casing 1, such as directly below, below left or below right inside the casing 1, or the like. Also by way of example, in an alternative scenario, the subcooling chamber 13 may be arranged such that a portion or all of it is within the array space formed by the heat exchange tubes 20, so that space may be fully utilized to overcome problems such as the "tube bundle flooding effect" discussed above, such as that schematically illustrated in FIG. 2.

Further, the supercooling chamber 13 and the receiving part 11 may be provided to have the same length or different lengths in the length direction L of the heat exchanger 100, for example, the supercooling chamber 13 may be provided to be smaller than the respective length of the receiving part 11 at the respective lengths.

With continued reference to fig. 1 and 2, in the illustrated embodiment, the receiving portion 11 of the deflector 10 is optionally configured to have a first portion 111 and a second portion 112, and the guide portion 12 is disposed therebetween to form a guide channel for guiding the liquid received by each of the first portion 111 and the second portion 112 to flow into the bottom 14 of the housing 1. In the above-described exemplary embodiments, the air guiding device 10 has a completely symmetrical or substantially symmetrical structural arrangement in the housing 1, i.e. in this case the first section 111 and the second section 112 are based on the same or substantially the same construction and are also at the same height in the height direction H of the housing 1. It should be noted, however, that in some embodiments, the first portion 111 and the second portion 112 may not only have different structural configurations, but also may be at different height positions in the height direction H, for example, one may be arranged at a higher position relative to the other, which may be considered in some applications, for example, in terms of the arrangement of the heat exchange tubes 20 in an array, and therefore may bring more advantageous technical effects.

Further, as an alternative, a part or the whole of the receiving portion 11 may be configured to have a profile that can promote the liquid that has been received by the receiving portion 11 to flow more easily toward the guiding portion 12, and at the same time, can avoid such liquid that has been received from leaking out again from the side of the receiving portion 11. For example, the above-mentioned contour may be any feasible shape such as a curved arc or a slope (e.g., forming a bent structure) inclined toward the guide portion 12, and for example, one side end portion or both side end portions of the receiving portion 11 may be provided higher than the middle portion of the receiving portion 11 in the height direction H, so that the fluid may be more easily caused to flow into the guide portion 12 disposed below the middle portion of the receiving portion 11 at this time. In addition, the receiving portion 11 may be arranged to form a gas flow passage between both side ends thereof and the inner wall of the housing 1, and the guide portion 12 positioned in the middle forms a liquid flow passage, so that a clearly separated gas-liquid flow passage is formed by the receiving portion 11 and the guide portion 12.

It should be noted that, for the receiving portion 11, it may be alternatively arranged that the number of the heat exchange tubes 20 located above it is not greater than the number of the heat exchange tubes 20 located below it, which may be set according to the application requirement. Further, as shown in fig. 2, the receiver 11 may be arranged at a preset distance S1 from the most adjacent row of heat exchange tubes 20 located above it and at another preset distance S2 from the most adjacent row of heat exchange tubes 20 located below it. By setting the two preset distances S1 and S2, the second fluid and the like can be helped to flow therebetween, undesirable flow dead zones are avoided, heat exchange is guaranteed and improved, and the specific design conditions can be flexibly set according to different application requirements, for example, the preset distance S2 can be optionally set to be not less than the preset distance S1.

Although the solution of the present invention has been discussed in detail above in connection with the embodiments shown in fig. 1 and 2, it should be understood that the solution of the present invention is susceptible to numerous modifications, adaptations or alternatives in practical use. For example, a plurality of supports 30 are simultaneously disposed inside the shell 1 of the heat exchanger 100 shown in fig. 1, and the supports 30 can support and protect some or all of the heat exchange tubes 20 in the heat exchanger 100, and the flow guiding device 10 can be optionally installed between two adjacent supports 30 as shown schematically in fig. 1; of course, in other embodiments, the invention allows not to provide the above-mentioned support 30 or only one support 30, or in other embodiments, the invention also allows to remove the above-mentioned superheated gas diffusing device 40 and/or the supercooling chamber 13, and to arrange the flow guiding device 10 inside the shell 1 of the heat exchanger 100 in an asymmetrical manner.

As an illustrative illustration, a comparison of performance testing between embodiments employing heat exchangers according to the present invention and prior art solutions is provided in fig. 3. In fig. 3, the abscissa indicates the number of rows of heat exchange tubes arranged in the heat exchanger, and the ordinate indicates the ratio of the heat transfer coefficient external to the tubes of the nth row hro (N) to the average heat transfer coefficient external to the tubes of the first five rows hro (5). In the comparative test, the above average outside-tube heat transfer coefficient hro (5) was employed to ensure accurate reliability and comparability of the test data. The same structural configuration was used in the tests and different heat exchange conditions (8 different heat exchange amounts of 900-. First, the solid line test data in FIG. 3 indicates the "tube bundle flooding effect" present in prior condensers-the heat transfer coefficient of the tube bundle located in the lower portion of the condenser will decay as the number of tube rows increases. Secondly, the dotted line in fig. 3 schematically shows that the external heat exchange coefficient of the heat exchange tubes located at the lower portion of the heat exchanger can be effectively improved after the present invention is applied.

It should be noted that the use of the inventive design according to the present invention not only results in an improved heat exchange performance outside the tubes, especially of the heat exchange tubes located in the lower part of the heat exchanger, but also reduces the space occupied by the receiving and guiding

portions

11, 12 in the flow guiding device. According to a practical example of application, it is shown that it is possible to save about 10% of the number of heat exchange tubes thereby while the system still has the same operating performance. Since the heat exchanger tubes are usually made of copper material, which has good heat transfer properties but is relatively expensive, the material saving effect according to the solution of the invention can result in considerable advantages.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a heat exchange system, wherein a heat exchanger designed according to the present invention, such as the one exemplarily described above, can be disposed in the heat exchange system, and can be used as a heat exchange device, such as a condenser, in the heat exchange system, so as to better solve the problems, such as "tube bundle flooding effect", existing in the prior art, and achieve the outstanding technical advantages, such as those discussed above, of the present invention over the prior art.

The heat exchanger and the heat exchange system including the same according to the present invention have been explained in detail above by way of examples only, and these examples are only for illustrating the principle of the present invention and the embodiments thereof, not for limiting the present invention, and various modifications and improvements can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Accordingly, all equivalents are intended to be included within the scope of this invention and defined in the claims which follow.

Claims

1. A heat exchanger comprising a housing and heat exchange tubes located within the housing, characterised in that the heat exchanger further comprises a flow directing device disposed within the housing and comprising a receiving portion arranged between two adjacent rows of heat exchange tubes and extending substantially horizontally along the length of the housing for receiving liquid and a guiding portion arranged for guiding liquid received by the receiving portion to the bottom of the interior of the housing.

2. The heat exchanger according to claim 1, wherein the receiving portion includes a first portion and a second portion at the same height or different heights in a height direction of the housing, and the guide portion is provided as a guide groove located between the first portion and the second portion and toward a bottom of the housing interior.

3. The heat exchanger of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the receiving portion is configured with a profile that encourages the liquid to flow toward the directing portion.

4. The heat exchanger according to claim 3, wherein the receiving portion is configured such that an end portion of at least one side thereof is higher than a middle portion of the receiving portion in a height direction of the housing, and a gas flow passage is formed between the end portion and an inner wall of the housing, and the guide portion is connected to and disposed at the middle portion of the receiving portion.

5. The heat exchanger according to claim 1, wherein the receiving portion is arranged such that the number of heat exchange tubes located thereabove is not greater than the number of heat exchange tubes located therebelow.

6. The heat exchanger according to claim 1, wherein the receiver is arranged at a first preset distance from a most adjacent row of heat exchange tubes located above the receiver and at a second preset distance from a most adjacent row of heat exchange tubes located below the receiver, the second preset distance being not less than the first preset distance.

7. The heat exchanger of claim 1, wherein the receiving portion is arranged to extend up to both end tube sheets of the heat exchanger.

8. The heat exchanger of claim 1, wherein the heat exchanger further comprises:

9. The heat exchanger according to claim 8, wherein the heat exchanger is provided with at least two supports, the flow guiding device being arranged at least between two adjacent supports.

10. A heat exchange system, characterized in that it comprises a heat exchanger according to any one of claims 1-9.