Techniques for Thermal Damping in Tube Bundles

Abstract

Flow-induced vibration in heat exchangers has been a source of concern in the process, power generation and nuclear industry for several decades. Damping has a major influence on the flow induced vibrations and is dependant on a variety of factors such as mechanical properties of the tube material, geometry of intermediate supports, the physical properties of shell-side fluid, type of tube motion, number of supports, tube frequency, shell-side temperature etc. Various damping mechanisms have been identified and quantified. Generally the effects of the higher operating temperatures on the various damping mechanisms are neglected in the general design procedure. This paper focuses on the thermal aspects of damping mechanisms subjected to single phase cross-flow in shell and tube heat exchanger and a comparison is carried out safer design based on experimental and empirical formulations.

Keywords

• Thermal Damping
• Tube Bundles
• Damping Mechanisms
• Flow Induced Vibration, Heat Exchangers
• Steam Generators
• Multi-Span.