ESL-IE-09-05-25 DESIGN OF HEAT EXCHANGER FOR HEAT RECOVERY IN CHP SYSTEMS Theodore A. Kozman Bimaldeep Kaur Associate Professor Research Assistant Department of Mechanical Engineering P. O. Box 44170, Room 244 CLR Hall University of Louisiana at Lafayette Lafayette, LA 70504-2250, USA ABSTRACT The objective of this research is to review issues related to the design of heat recovery unit in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems. To meet specific needs of CHP systems, configurations can be altered to affect different factors of the design. Before the design process can begin, product specifications, such as steam or water pressures and temperatures, and equipment, such as absorption chillers and heat exchangers, need to be identified and defined. The Energy Engineering Laboratory of the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the Louisiana Industrial Assessment Center has been donated an 800kW diesel turbine and a 100 ton absorption chiller from industries. This equipment needs to be integrated with a heat exchanger to work as a Combined Heat and Power system for the University which will supplement the chilled water supply and electricity. The design constraints of the heat recovery unit are the specifications of the turbine and the chiller which cannot be altered. INTRODUCTION Combined Heat and Power (CHP), also known as cogeneration, is a way to generate power and heat simultaneously and use the heat generated in the process for various purposes. While the cogenerated power in mechanical or electrical energy can be either totally consumed in an industrial plant or exported to a utility grid, the recovered heat obtained from the thermal energy in exhaust streams of power generating equipment is used to operate equipment such as absorption chillers, desiccant dehumidifiers, or heat recovery equipment for producing steam or hot water or for space and/or process cooling, heating, or controlling humidity. Based on the equipment used, CHP is also known by other acronyms such as CHPB (Cooling Heating and Power for Buildings), CCHP (Combined Cooling Heating and Power), BCHP (Building Cooling Heating and Power) and IES (Integrated Energy Systems). CHP systems are much more efficient than producing electric and thermal power separately. Jim Lee Professor According to the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, 1995 [14], there were 4.6 million commercial buildings in the United States. These buildings consumed 5.3 quads of energy, about half of which was in the form of electricity. Analysis of survey data shows that CHP meets only 3.8% of the total energy needs of the commercial sector. Despite the growing energy needs, the average efficiency of power generation has remained 33% since 1960 and the average overall efficiency of generating heat and electricity using conventional methods is around 47%. And with the increase in prices in both electricity and natural gas, the need for setting up more CHP plants remains a pressing issue. CHP is known to reduce fuel costs by about 27% [15] and significantly reduce emissions of NOx, SOx, and CO released into the atmosphere. The objective of this research is to review issues related to the design of heat recovery unit in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems. To meet specific needs of CHP systems, configurations can be altered to affect different factors of the design. Before the design process can begin, product specifications, such as steam or water pressures and temperatures, and equipment, such as absorption chillers and heat exchangers, need to be identified and defined. The Mechanical Engineering Department and the Industrial Assessment Center at the University of Louisiana Lafayette has been donated an 800kW diesel turbine and a 100 ton absorption chiller from industries. This equipment needs to be integrated to work as a Combined Heat and Power system for the University which will supplement the chilled water supply and electricity. The design constraints of the heat recovery unit are the specifications of the turbine and the chiller which cannot be altered. Integrating equipment to form a CHP system generally does not always present the best solution. In our case study, the absorption chiller is not able to utilize all of the waste heat from the turbine exhaust. Proceedings of the Thirty-First Industrial Energy Technology Conference, New Orleans, LA, May 12-15, 2009 ESL-IE-09-05-25 This is because the capacity of the chiller is too small as compared to the turbine capacity. However, the need for extra space conditioning in the buildings considered remains an issue which can be resolved through the use of this CHP system. BACKGROUND LITERATURE The decision of setting up a CHP system involves a huge investment. Before plunging into one, any industry, commercial building or facility owner weighs it against the option of conventional generation. A dynamic stochastic model has been developed that compares the decision of an irreversible investment in a cogeneration system with that of investing in a conventional heat generation system such as steam boiler combined with the option of purchasing all the electricity from the grid [21]. This model is applied theoretically based on realistic fuel costs and accounting for CO2 tax exempts. Keeping in mind factors such as rising electricity and gas costs, the NOx, SOx and COx emissions, and the availability and security of electricity supply, the benefits of a combined heat and power system are many. CHP systems demand that the performance of the system be well tested. The effects of various parameters such as the ambient temperature, inlet turbine temperature, compressor pressure ratio and gas turbine combustion efficiency are investigated on the performance of the CHP system and determines of each of these parameters [1]. Five major areas where CHP systems can be optimized in order to maximize profits have been identified as optimization of heat to power ratio, equipment selection, economic dispatch, intelligent performance monitoring and maintenance optimization [6]. Many commercial buildings such as universities and hospitals have installed CHP systems for meeting their growing energy needs. Before the University of Dundee installed a 3 MW CHP system, first the objectives for setting up a cogeneration system in the university were laid and then accordingly the equipment was selected. Considerations for compatibility of the new CHP setup with the existing district heating plant were taken care by some alterations in pipe work so that neither system could impose any operational constraints on the other [5]. Louisiana State University installed a CHP system by contracting it to Sempra Energy Services to meet the increase in chilled water and steam demands. The new cogeneration system was linked with the existing central power plant to supplement chilled water and steam supply. This project saves the university $ 4.7 million each year in energy costs alone and 2,200 tons less of CO2 every year. The reduced NOx emissions are equivalent to 530 annual vehicular emissions. Another example of a commercial CHP set-up is the Mississippi Baptist Medical Center. First the energy requirement of the hospital was assessed and the potential savings that a CHP system would generate [10]. CHP applications are not limited to the industrial and commercial sector alone. CHP systems on a micro-scale have been studied for use in residential applications. The cost of UK residential energy demand is calculated and a study is performed that compares the operating cost for the following three micro CHP technologies: Sterling engine, gas engine, and solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) for use in homes [9]. The search for different types of fuel cells in residential homes finds that a dominant cost effective design of fuel cell use in micro – CHP exists that is quickly emerging [3]. However fuel cells face competition from alternate energy products that are already in the market. Use of alternate energy such as biomass combined with natural gas has been tested for CHP applications where biomass is used as an external combustor by providing heat to partially reform the natural gas feed [16]. A similar study was preformed where solid municipal waste is integrated with natural gas fired combustion cycle for use in a waste-to-energy system which is coupled with a heat recovery steam generator that drives a steam turbine [4]. SYSTEM DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS Integration of a CHP system is generally at two levels: the system level and the component level. Certain trade-offs between the component level metrics and system level metrics are required to achieve optimal integrated cooling, heating and power performance [18]. All CHP systems comprise mainly of three components, a power generating equipment or a turbine, a heat recovery unit and a cooling device such as an absorption chiller. There are various parameters that need to be considered at the design stage of a CHP project. For instance, the chiller efficiency together with the plant size and the electric consumption of cooling towers and condenser water pumps are analyzed to achieve the overall system design [20]. Absorption chillers work great with micro turbines. A good example is the Rolex Reality building in New York, where a 150 kW unit is hooked up with an absorption chiller that Proceedings of the Thirty-First Industrial Energy Technology Conference, New Orleans, LA, May 12-15, 2009 ESL-IE-09-05-25 provides chilled water. An advantage of absorption chillers is that they don’t require any permits or emission treatment [2] desiccant wheel thereby regenerating it for further dehumidification. This makes them useful in CHP systems as they utilize the waste heat. Exhaust gas at 800°F comes out of the turbine at a flow rate of 48,880 lbs/h [7]. One important constraint during the design of the CHP system was to control the final temperature of this exhaust gas. This meant utilizing as much heat as required from the exhaust gas and subsequently bringing down the exit temperature. After running different iterations on temperature calculations, it was decided to divert 35% of the exhaust air to the heat exchanger while the remaining 65% is directed to go up the stack. This is achieved by using a diverter damper. In addition, diverting 35% of the gas relieves the problem of back pressure build-up at the end of the turbine. An absorption chiller is mechanical equipment that provides cooling to buildings through chilled water. The main underlying principle behind the working of an absorption chiller is that it uses heat energy as input, instead of mechanical energy. A diverter valve can also used at the inlet side of the heat exchanger which would direct the exhaust gas either to the heat exchanger or out of the bypass stack. This takes care of variable loads requirement. Inside the heat exchanger, exhaust gas enter the shell side and heats up water running in the tubes which then goes to the absorption chiller. These chillers run on either steam or hot water. The absorption chiller donated to the University runs on hot water and supplies chilled water. A continuous water circuit is made to run through the chiller to take away heat from the heat input source and also from the chilled water. The chilled water from the absorption chiller is then transferred to the existing University chilling system unit or for another use. Thermally Activated Devices Thermally activated technologies (TATs) are devices that transform heat energy for useful purposed such as heating, cooling, humidity control etc. The commonly used TATs in CHP systems are absorption chillers and desiccant dehumidifiers. Absorption chiller is a highly efficient technology that uses less energy than conventional chilling equipment, and also cools buildings without the use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These chillers can be powered by natural gas, steam, or waste heat. Desiccant dehumidifiers are used in space conditioning by removing humidity. By dehumidifying the air, the chilling load on the AC equipment is reduced and the atmosphere becomes much more comfortable. Hot air coming from an airto-air heat exchanger removes water from the Though the idea of using heat energy to obtain chilled water seems to be highly paradoxical, the absorption chiller is a highly efficient technology and cost effective in facilities which have significant heating loads. Moreover, unlike electrical chillers, absorption chillers cool buildings without using ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These chillers can be powered by natural gas, steam or waste heat. Absorption chiller systems are classified in the following two ways: 1. By the number of generators. i) Single effect chiller – this type of chiller, as the name suggests, uses one generator and the heat released during the absorption of the refrigerant back into the solution is rejected to the environment. ii) Double effect chiller – this chiller uses two generators paired with a single condenser, evaporator and absorber. Some of the heat released during the absorption process is used to generate more refrigerant vapor thereby increasing the chiller’s efficiency as more vapor is generated per unit heat or fuel input. A double effect chiller requires a higher temperature heat input to operate and therefore its use in CHP systems is limited by the type of electrical generation equipment it can be used with. iii) Triple effect chiller – this has three generators and even higher efficiency than a double effect chiller. As they require even higher heat input temperatures, the material choice and the absorbent/refrigerant combination is limited. 2. By type of input: i) Indirect-fired absorption chillers – they use steam, hot water, or hot gases from a boiler, turbine, engine generator or fuel cell as a primary power input. Indirect-fired absorption chillers fit well into the CHP schemes where they increase the efficiency by utilizing the otherwise waste heat and producing chilled water from it. Proceedings of the Thirty-First Industrial Energy Technology Conference, New Orleans, LA, May 12-15, 2009 ESL-IE-09-05-25 ii) Direct-fired absorption chillers – they contain burners which use fuel such as natural gas. Heat rejected from these chillers is used to provide hot water or dehumidify air by regenerating the desiccant wheel. An absorption cycle is a process which uses two fluids and some heat input to produce the refrigeration effect as compared to electrical input in a vapor compression cycle in the more familiar electrical chiller. Although both the absorption cycle and the vapor compression cycle accomplish heat removal by the evaporation of a refrigerant at a low pressure and the rejection of heat by the condensation of refrigerant at a higher pressure, the method of creating the pressure difference and circulating the refrigerant remains the primary difference between the two. The vapor compression cycle uses a mechanical compressor that creates the pressure difference necessary to circulate the refrigerant, while the same is achieved by using a secondary fluid or an absorbent in the absorption cycle [11]. The primary working fluids ammonia and water in the vapor compression cycle with ammonia acting as the refrigerant and water as the absorbent are replaced by lithium bromide (LiBr) as the absorbent and water (H2O) as the refrigerant in the absorption cycle. The process occurs in two shells - the upper shell consisting of the generator and the condenser and the lower shell consisting of the evaporator and the absorber. Heat is supplied to the LiBr/H2O solution through the generator causing the refrigerant (water) to be boiled out of the solution, as in a distillation process. The resulting water vapor passes into the condenser where it is condensed back into the liquid state using a condensing medium. The water then enters the evaporator where actual cooling takes place as water is passes over tubes containing the fluid to be cooled. A very low pressure is maintained in the absorber-evaporator shell, causing the water to boil at a very low temperature. This results in water absorbing heat from the medium to be cooled and thereby lowering its temperature. The heated low pressure vapor then returns to the absorber where it mixes with the LiBr/H2O solution low in water content. Due to the solution’s low water content, vapor gets easily absorbed resulting in a weaker LiBr/H2O solution. This weak solution is pumped back to the generator where the process repeats itself. Heat Exchanger The heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) is primarily a boiler which generates steam from the waste heat of a turbine to drive a steam turbine. The heat recovery boiler design for cogeneration process applications covers many parameters. The boiler could be designed as a fire-tube, water tube or combination type. Further for each of these parameters, there is a variety of tube sizes and fin configurations. For a given boiler, a simplified method that determines the boiler performance has been developed [8]. The shell and tube heat exchanger is the most common and widely used heat exchanger in different industrial applications [13]. It is compared to a classic instrument in a concert playing all the important nodes in different complex system set-ups and can be improved by using helical baffles. There are other ways to augment the heat transfer in a shell and tube exchanger such as through the use of wallradiation [25]. The design of a shell and tube heat exchanger for a combined heat and power system basically involves determining its size or geometry by predicting the overall heat transfer coefficient (U). The process of obtaining the heat transfer coefficient values is obtained from literature by correlating results from previous findings in the determination of heat exchanger designs. This involves listing assumptions at the beginning of the procedure, obtaining fluid properties, calculation of Reynolds number and the flow area to obtain the shell and tube sizes. Once U is calculated, the heat balances are calculated. This study also compares the theoretical U values with the actual experimental ones to prove the theoretical assumptions and to obtain the optimum design model [18]. A mathematical simulation for the transient heat exchange of a shell and tube heat exchanger based on energy conservation and mass balance can be used to measure the performance. The design of the heat exchanger is optimized with the objective function being the total entropy generation rate considering the heat transfer and the flow resistance [20]. Once a heat exchanger is designed, a total cost equation for the heat exchanger operation is deduced. Based on this, a program is developed for the optimal selection of shell-tube heat exchanger [24]. Proceedings of the Thirty-First Industrial Energy Technology Conference, New Orleans, LA, May 12-15, 2009 ESL-IE-09-05-25 The heat exchanger to be used in the CHP system in the end needs to be tested for its performance. A heat recovery module for cogeneration is tested before use for CHP application through a microprocessor based control system to present the system design and performance data [19]. The basis of a CHP system lies in efficiently capturing thermal energy and using it effectively. Generally in CHP systems, the exhaust gas from the prime mover is ducted to a heat exchanger to recover the thermal energy in the gas. The commonly used heat recovery systems are heat exchangers and Heat Recovery Steam Generators depending on whether hot water or steam is required. 1. 2. 3. The heat exchanger is typically an air-to-water kind where the exhaust gas flows over some form of tube and fin heat exchange surface and the heat from the exhaust gas is transferred to make hot water. Sometimes, a diverter or a flapper damper is used to maintain a specific design temperature of the hot water or steam generation rate by regulating the exhaust flow through the heat exchanger. 4. 5. Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC) – They are know to reduce emissions of carbon monoxide by 70 percent, hydrocarbons by 60 percent, and particulate matter by 25 percent (Emissions Control : CHP Technologies Gulf Coast CHP 2007) when used with the ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel. Reductions are also significant with the use of regular diesel fuel. Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) - DPF can reduce emissions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter by approximately 90 to 95 percent (Emissions Control : CHP Technologies Gulf Coast CHP 2007). However, DPF are used only in conjunction with ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel. Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) – They have a great potential for reducing NOx emissions. Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) – SCR cuts down high levels of NOx by reducing NOx to nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2). NOx absorbers – catalysts are used which adsorb NOx in the exhaust gas and dissociates it to nitrogen. The HRSG is essentially a boiler that captures the heat from the exhaust of a prime mover such as a combustion turbine, gas or diesel engine to make steam. Water is pumped and circulated through the tubes which are heated by exhaust gases at temperatures ranging from 800°F to 1200°F. The water can then be held under high pressure to temperatures of 370°F or higher to produce high pressure steam [21]. CONCLUSIONS The various components needed in a CHP system have been presented. Important parameters such as the mass flow rates of the exhaust gas and water can then be defined. The CHP system has been integrated by the use of a heat recovery unit, the design of which has been discussed. A shell and tube configuration is commonly selected based on literature survey. The pressure drops at both the shell and the tube side can be calculated after the exchanger has been sized. The Delaware method is a rating method regarded as the most suitable open-literature available for evaluating shell side performance and involves the calculation of the overall heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drops on both the shell and tube side for single-phase fluids [12]. This method can be used only when the flow rates, inlet and outlet temperatures, pressures and other physical properties of both the fluids and a minimum set of geometrical properties of the shell and tube are known. Integrating equipment to form a CHP system generally does not always present the best solution. In our case study, the absorption chiller is not able to utilize all of the waste heat from the turbine exhaust. Approximately 65% goes is left to go out the stack. This is because the capacity of the chiller is too small as compared to the turbine capacity. However, the need for extra space conditioning in the buildings considered remains an issue which can be resolved through the use of this CHP system. Emission Control Emission control technologies are used in the CHP systems to remove SO2 (sulphur dioxide), SO3 (sulphur trioxide) NOx (nitrous oxide) and other particulate matter present in the exhaust of a prime mover. Some common emission control technologies are: The heat exchanger designed can either be constructed following the TEMA standards or it can be built and purchased from an industrial facility. The design that is used is based on the methodology of the Bell-Delaware method and the approach is purely theoretical, so the sizing may be slightly different in industrial design. Also the manufacturing feasibility needs to be checked. Proceedings of the Thirty-First Industrial Energy Technology Conference, New Orleans, LA, May 12-15, 2009 ESL-IE-09-05-25 After the heat exchanger is constructed, the CHP equipment can be hooked together. Again since the available equipment is integrated to work as a system, the efficiency of the CHP system needs to be calculated. Some kind of control module needs to be developed that can monitor the performance of the entire system. Finally, the cost of running the set-up needs to be determined along with the airconditioning requirements. [10] Hodge, B.K, and Louay Chamra. CHP (Cooling, Heating, and Power)at the Mississippi Baptist Medical Center. Mississippi: Southeast CHP Application Center, 2007. [11] Kevin D. Rafferty. "Absorption Refrigeration." Geo-Heat Bulletin, 1996-2207. [12] Kuppan, T. Heat Exchanger Design Handbook, New York: Marcel and Dekker Inc., 2000. REFERENCES [1] Al- Hawaj, Osamah M., and Hamad Al-Mutairi. "A combined power cycle with absorption air conditioning." 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