Pressure Drop Study of Polymeric Hollow Fiber Heat Exchangers

Abstract

Polymeric hollow fiber heat exchangers are an alternative to common metal heat exchangers in lowtemperature applications. Their advantages are low cost, low weight, and corrosion resistance. The heat transfer surface consists of hundreds or even thousands of fibers of small diameter. The PHFHE for gas-liquid application has a regular structure, which prevents the fibers from blocking the heat transfer surface and allow the gas to flow through the heat exchanger. This arrangement, known as the bank of tubes, is common for the multipass shell and tube heat exchangers. There are relations used to estimate the pressure drop of flow passing the bank of tubes. Those are based on extensive experimental research with steel tubes. Unfortunately, it seems that those relations do not apply to flexible fibers. This paper shows the discrepancy between the theory for non-flexible bank of tubes and measured data of PHFHE.