TRANSIENT-RESPONSE OF A PARALLEL-FLOW SHELL-AND-TUBE HEAT-EXCHANGER AND ITS CONTROL

The shell and tube heat exchangers constitute the single largest compo nent of the heat exchanger family. Though a vast number of literature is available for their steady state analyses, the number of works on t ransient analysis are comparatively fewer. The present paper brings ou t the transient response of a single pass shell and tube heat exchange r neglecting wall heat capacitance. The model is constructed with a di stributed parameter approach. Unlike a number of recent analyses the n umerical technique is avoided and the path of double Laplace transform has been chosen instead. This gives a scope for a unique functional r epresentation of the response which is useful for deciding the control strategies to be adopted. This strategy has been formulated for the p arallel flow model using PID controllers.