Mathematical Modeling and Simulation of Multi-component Condenser for the condensation of Hydrocarbon vapour mixture using MATLAB

Gaurav Shukla
2017 International Journal of Scientific Development and Research   unpublished
Condensers are important class of equipment in process industry. Condensation is the process of changing vapour into liquid. Design of heat exchanger to partially or totally condense a vapour mixture is frequently necessary in the process industry. The term vapour mixture actually comprehends an entire spectrum of situation. The limit of the spectrum is a mixture in which all the component present have boiling point above the maximum coolant temperature; in this case the mixture is totally
more » ... nsed.(Bell & Ghaly et al).In the present work, vertical shell and tube condenser has been designed for the condensation of hydrocarbon vapour mixture containing Propane, Butane, Hexane ,Heptanes and Octane in the mole composition of 0.15, 0.25,0.05,0.30& 0.25 with the help of MATLAB using Bell & Ghaly. Heat transfer area has been calculated for the different heat load by Bell and Ghaly and Kern's design method. It is found that heat transfer surface area obtained by Kern's method is always lesser than that obtained by Bell & Ghaly's method. The reason for this is that Kern's method omits the mass transfer resistance in the vapour phase. Further, the developed code has been used to study the effect of operating variable on heat transfer area, overall heat transfer coefficient , tube side and shell side pressure drops. The overall heat transfer coefficient was found to increase with coolant flow rate and decrease with an increase in coolant inlet temperature, vapour inlet temperature and vapour flow rate. The shell-side pressure drop was found to increase with vapour flow rate where as other variables have nominal effects. Validation of the developed code has been done using the work of S. Bandyopadhyay et al. and is be to be found in good agreement. Therefore, it may be concluded that the developed code may be used for the design of a multi-component condenser where all the components can be totally condensed.
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