Analyses and design of an Air Cooled Heat Exchanger

It is well known that in arid regions like Rajasthan the use of Air Cooled Heat Exchange (ACHE) systems is inevitable. This paper presents a brief overview on the development of air-cooled heat exchange system and possibilities of efficiency improvement. The efficiency improvement in view of its applicability is considered in this paper. For this purpose, tube bundles with different shapes are considered, namely, elliptical and the widely employed circular geometry. Furthermore, validation of the employed code indicates a possible set-up that can be adopted for analyzing the heat exchange from these tubes with air. A detailed analysis has clearly revealed the potential or possibilities of improvement in heat transfer in ACHE. Finally, a planned experiment is also described for further evaluation of this system. © 2012 IEEE.