Measurement of Heat Transfer Coefficients in an Agitated Vessel with Tube Baffles

Abstract

Cooling or heating an agitated liquid is a very common operation in many industrial processes. A classic approach is to transfer the necessary heat through the vessel jacket. Another option, frequently used in the chemical and biochemical industries is to use the heat transfer area of vertical tube baffles. In large equipment, e.g. fermentor, the jacket surface is often not sufficient for large heat transfer requirements and tube baffles can help in such cases. It is then important to know the values of the heat transfer coefficients between the baffles and the agitated liquid. This paper presents the results of heat transfer measurements using the transient method when the agitated liquid is periodically heated and cooled by hot and cold water running through tube baffles. Solving the unsteady enthalpy balance, it is possible to determine the heat transfer coefficient. Our results are summarized by the Nusselt number correlations, which describe the dependency on the Reynolds number, and they are compared with other measurements obtained by a steady-state method.

Keywords

• heat transfer coefficients
• agitated vessels
• tube baffles