What are heat exchanger tubes?

The heat exchange tube is one of the components of the heat exchanger. It is placed inside the cylinder and is used to exchange heat between two media. Has high thermal conductivity and good isothermal properties. It is a device that can quickly transfer heat energy from one point to another with almost no heat loss, so it is called a heat transfer superconductor, and its thermal conductivity is thousands of times that of copper.

In addition to plain tubes, heat exchangers can also use a variety of enhanced heat transfer tubes, such as fin tubes, threaded tubes, spiral groove tubes, etc. When the heat supply coefficients on both sides of the inner diameter of the tube differ greatly, the fins of the finned tube should be arranged on the side with the lower heat supply coefficient.
Commonly used sizes of heat exchange tubes (outer diameter Standard pipe lengths are 1.5, 2.0, 3.0, 4.5, 6.0, 9.0m, etc. The use of small pipe diameters can increase the heat transfer area per unit volume, compact the structure, reduce metal consumption, and improve the heat transfer coefficient. It is estimated that changing the heat exchange tube of the same diameter heat exchanger from Φ25mm to Φ19mm can increase the heat transfer area by about 40% and save more than 20% of metal. However, small diameter pipes have large fluid resistance, are inconvenient to clean, and are prone to scaling and blockage. Generally, large diameter pipes are used for viscous or dirty fluids, while small diameter pipes are used for cleaner fluids.

The center distance of the heat exchange tubes should ensure that the tube bridge (clearance distance between two adjacent tubes) has sufficient strength and width when the tubes are connected to the tube sheet. When the pipes need to be cleaned, there should be a cleaning channel. The center distance of heat exchange tubes should be no less than 1.25 times the outer diameter of the heat exchange tube. The most commonly used center distances of heat exchange tubes are in the table below. Commonly used heat exchange tube center distance mm.