HEAT-EXCHANGER FOULING - A MODEL STUDY OF THE SCALEUP OF LABORATORY DATA

Fouling of heat transfer equipment is a complex industrial problem. Ma ny experiments have been carried out on a small scale to study the pro blem, but few models which can be used industrially have been develope d. One problem may be that multiple mechanisms, often found in fouling , make scaleup very difficult. A series of possible scaleup strategies are tested using a computational model of a simple heat exchanger, an d it is shown that, without a very good understanding of the basic mec hanisms of fouling, scaleup may be very difficult in practice.