Simulate a Water Cooler

Simulate a Water Cooler

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ACOL 1_1.pdf

Workshop

Workshop
The purpose of this module is to determine the tubeside outlet
temperature for a forced-draught air-cooled heat exchanger by
simulating a water cooler.

Learning Objectives
Once you have completed this section, you will be able to:

Use the ACOL Interface to enter Air Cooled Heat Exchanger

design information.
Enter physical properties by the in-built NEL 40 databank.
Save datasets.

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Process Overview
Details of the process data and some basic geometric data are shown in
the following windows.
Click on New to create a new project file.

The New option clears any

existing data.

Building the Simulation

The following Start up screen appears. Go to the Simulation Option
field. Use the drop down list to select Tubeside Outlet Temperature.

Workshop

Next, we can begin entering the geometric data for the exchanger.
Before entering data however, it is necessary to establish the units that
the data will be entered in. On bottom left side there is a box marked
Units. Ensure that the units are SI.
1.

Click the Apply button to

accept your entries. Clicking
Next or OK will not record the
values you entered.

Enter the geometric values shown below:

2.

Click the Apply button.

3.

Click on the Bundle Specification tab.

4.

Enter the following details of the number of tubes and passes for
the bundle.

You will notice that 160 tubes are specified with 4 passes, implying that
each row will have the same number of tubes. Select Staggered - even
rows to left from the Type of Bundle drop down menu.

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Clicking on the OK button will give a pictorial representation of the

pass layout. All the rows will be the same colour when you first see this
window.

Row, tube, and pass numbers

are shown on the bottom of
the Pass Layout screen. The
width and height are also
displayed here.

Each pass is indicated by a different colour. Rows are numbered from

bottom to top. Therefore, Row 1 is the bottom row and Row 4 is the top
row.
In the Pass section, click on the 2 radio button. Move the mouse so it is
positioned over the first tube in the second row from the top, and click.
Hold the mouse button and move to the last tube in the row and release
the mouse.
The entire row now changes from yellow to orange; the row is now
designated as Row 3 = Pass 2.
5.

Repeat this action for the remaining rows using the following
information:

Row 2 = Pass 3
Row 1 = Pass 4
6.

Click Apply. Note the arrows pointing upward. This indicates that
the X-side flow direction is upwards, so the exchanger has been
specified as counter-current.

Workshop

7.

Enter the Bundle Geometry for the exchanger (ensuring that you
have the correct unit system).

8.

Click Apply and Next. Click Next on the Material Properties

window. Enter the remaining fin information as shown below:

Although you only need to

enter the required fields
(marked by an asterisk), you
can enter other information if
you want.

For the tubeside fouling, ACOL has many different options to consider
such as a fouling resistance, thermal conductivity and a thickness layer.
In this example, Constant Resistance is already selected as the Fouling
Option.

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The fouling resistance can be entered on the Tubeside Fouling tab of

the Process Data input. Enter a Fouling Resistance of 0.00002 m2k/w.

Click the Apply button and then click Next. The following window
appears. Enter a Inlet Dry Bulb Design Temperature of 37oC.

Workshop

9.

Click Apply and then go to the Process Streams tab. Enter the
data shown below for both streams and click Apply.

ACOL automatically picks up the physical property data for air on the
X-side. However, we need to enter physical property data on the
tubeside.
10.

From the Input menu, select Physical Property Data. Enter

Tubeside in the Name field. Enter the remaining information.

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Running the File

Before running the file, it is important to save the dataset. Open the File
menu and select Save As.

Save your case!

Run button

Run the file by clicking on the Run button on the main toolbar, or open
the Run menu and select Calculate All. As ACOL prepares the file, it
displays its progress in the following window.

The Status window should indicate ACOL successfully complete. If

there is a message indicating a fatal error, then another message box
appears with information on locating and fixing the error:

Use the information provided by the Error/Message Log to edit the

dataset. Save the file and then re-run. This error log can be checked at
any time after a run has been performed. Select Error/Message Log
under the Output menu.
The same data that we entered using the windows can also by entered
on the API Input form: Select API Input from the Input menu. A
Specification Sheet appears. Note that the blue highlighted values are
those that you entered. Click on any blue cell to change the information

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Workshop

in it.
You can also change the measurement units if you want. Under the
Units menu, you can change the units from SI (which is what we
specified at the beginning of this exercise) to either British Imperial
Units or Metric Units.

Results
View the output by selecting Results Summary from the Output menu.
The Summary box contains the flowrates, temperatures and pressures
for the tube and X-side. You should notice that the tubeside exit
temperature is 54C (129F), whereas a value of 56C (133F) was
expected. Thus the exchanger can perform a greater duty than
originally expected.

The Summary box contains information on the heat load, overall heat
transfer coefficients and the mean effective temperature difference.
Also, a duty ratio is indicated, where a value of 1.08 indicates that the
exchanger can achieve a duty of 8% greater than that originally
specified.

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