What Are Hairpin Heat Exchangers?

Hairpin heat exchangers are a type of Heat Exchanger that is suited for applications such as cooling medium- to high-temperature fluids with low pressure drop. They were developed by the US Navy during World War II, and have been widely used ever since. A hairpin heat exchangers has no moving parts, which means they require minimal maintenance. A hairpin heat exchanger consists of two sections – two tubes in parallel filled with a bundle of tightly coiled fins. Air is recirculated over the outside surface of one tube, while the other side is cooled by another fluid or gaseous medium which transfers its heat to the fin-tube bundle on that side.

Shell And Tube Heat Exchangers

Shell-and-tube heat exchangers are present in various shapes and sizes, with features and attributes specifically designed for various applications. For final use in the process of a factory with challenging space limits and demanding thermal requirements, one option is a hair pinch clip exchanger.

With a crooked configuration and different closure styles, hair clips can solve many problems associated with heat exchangers in applications that require high thermal performance and a compact trace. These features include:

1. Offering smaller footprints for obedience with the overall length limit.
2. Can be stacked through special support.
3. Accommodate differential thermal expansion without the need for integrated expansion connections.
4. Hold the high terminal temperature gradient, preventing potential failure due to thermal pressure.
5. Able to handle cross cross between cold and heat liquid due to pure Concurrent flow design.
6. Offer designs that are more efficient thermally with shells that are smaller than traditional shell-and-tube heat exchangers.

A Smaller Trace Of Equipment

Because the hairpins have two foot shells, only half of the overall length needed compared to pure Councurrent shell-and-tube colleagues such as type nen or BEM. This smaller trace provides a profit where the room is on a premium as on the offshore platform.

Design That Can Be Stacked

Hairpin heat exchanger design simplifies a buildup of several units for series settings. Because of the upper and legin hairpin design, the supporting structure reaches the full altitude of the shells to provide only support below it. This structure like this box allows stacking without requiring additional or special support.

Differential Thermal Expansion 

When differential thermal expansion is concerned, traditional fixed tube heat exchangers may not be suitable for this service. The expansion connection is generally needed in the application, which adds to the cost to heat exchanger, especially if higher pressure or high alloy material is needed.

The expansion joints are not needed for hairpins because – just like the style theme with U-bends (BEU, NEU, etc.) – tubes are free to develop. The minimum bend radius is also large with design, which facilitates cleaning.

High Terminal Temperature Gradient 

Hair pinch exchangers can accommodate high terminal temperature gradients (separated terminal ends). Dual-tube sheet hairpin design also handles large temperatures swing from inlet to outlets. U-U type tube sheet design will have a large temperature gradient across one tube sheet between the hot and cold side of the tube side liquid. This can cause loss and potential failure due to thermal pressure.

Pure Concurrent Flow 

When crossing a large temperature is between the process flow, pure Concurrent flow is needed. Cross cross is defined by the temperature of the outlet of each fluid crossing each other; That is, the temperature of the hot side outlet is lower than the cold side outlet temperature.

Hairpin exchangers have pure concurrent flow; That is, the media flows in one pass on the side of the shell and side of the tube, in the opposite direction. Even the close temperature approach and / or high temperature ratio can usually be achieved in single hair clips instead of several shell-and-tube exchangers in series.

Efficient thermally. Specifically available closing styles when pressure designs are high tube side. In many of these cases, the design of hair clips can be more thermally more efficient than traditional shells and tubes. In addition, designs usually produce smaller shells.