EXPERIMENTAL STUDY REGARDING THE CORROSION BEHAVIOUR OF HEAT EXCHANGER BRASS TUBES IN THE PRESENCE OF DIFFERENT AGGRESSIVE ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

The study on the tubes (made of CuZn36 material) of a condenser used in petrochemical industry revealed that thickness reduction by corrosion is the main factor causing the decrease of the equipment service life. The present paper aims to study, from the experimental point of view, the behavior of the heat exchanger tubes, in the presence of different environments. The experimental program conducted in the article included two directions: evaluation of technical condition of in-service brass tubes after a certain period of operation for a condenser used in petrochemical industry in order to see how the working conditions affect the brass tubes and an experimental study based on simulation of exposure to extreme corrosive environments for samples taken from new CuZn36 tubes. The goal is to establish their influence on the tubes degradations by determining the corrosion rate. The analyzed samples were immersed in different corrosive solutions for 21 days. Another sample was boiled in water and cooled in air in order to simulate the working environment of the tubes in the condenser. All the samples were weighted before and after the exposure in the aggressive environment, thus establishing the corrosion rate for each of them. In order to analyze from mechanical point of view the influence of the environment on the brass tubes, the flattening test was made, comparing the behavior of the exposed samples with that of the unexposed sample.

Keywords

• heat exchanger
• copper
• corrosion rate
• condenser tubes
• flattening test