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Spiral Tube Heat Exchanger
Spiral tubes arrangement inside the pressure vessel for single stream design .
In order to fabricate its very large bundle , the company developed a homemade automatic tube winding system using a tube straightener , a constant-pressure tube output controller , an angle regulator to ensure a constant pitch and precise angle between the different layers and an automated guided vehicle . This unique manufacturing equipment guarantees a reliable and very precise fabrication , with extremely low fabrication tolerances , even on a very large assembly of kilometres of tubes . Another key parameter for the robustness of heat exchangers at high pressure and temperature is the tube to tubesheet joint procedures . For the tubesheet , the precision deep hole drilling technique is giving a tube hole roughness Ra of 1.6 , and a bore diameter deviation lower than +/ - 0.05 mm . For the tubes , the diameter deviation is lower than +/ - 0.05 mm . The tube to tubesheet joints can be strength welds with hydraulic expansion or inner bore welds depending on the requirements of the process . The strength welds are performed by an automatic visual tracking and positioning system robot . Whereas X-ray is used to control the quality of the joint on strength welds , anode rod X-ray and CR imaging are used for inner bore welds .
Tube material : The tubes can be made of carbon steel , Cr-Mo , stainless steel ( 304 , 316 , 321 , super SS , Duplex ), titanium and high nickel alloy ( Incoloy 825 , Inconel 600 ). The maximum seamless tube length can be more than 100m , with a surface roughness < Ra 0.3 .
Shell material : The shell material can be made of carbon steel , Cr-Mo , stainless steel and titanium . For the biggest units , the diameter can go up to 6,000 mm with a weight over 700 metric tons .
About the authors
Mr Christophe Gajecki is a sales strategy consultant . His expertise is in sales & marketing of heat transfer equipment for refinery and petrochemical industries . Since 1997 , he has worked for fired heaters and heat exchangers manufacturers , selling and managing sales team on long-term complex international projects . For more information , please send an email to : christophe . gajecki @ htransferconsulting . com
Mr Ren Hongliang is the chief engineer of Design and Research Institute of ZPJE . With 30 years of experience , he specialised in mechanical design of pressure vessel and spiral tube heat exchanger for different processes . Since 1992 , he has worked for STHE research , design , and is managing design and technical teams .
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