• Paepe, Michel De
• Verbeken, Kim
• Van Bael, Johan
• Salenbien, Robbe
• Faes, Willem

Abstract

Heat exchangers play a key role in power generation and many industrial processes. In various applications, the construction material is however exposed to a corrosive environment. This requires the device to be made from expensive corrosion resistant materials, causing the cost of the heat exchanger to increase significantly. One alternative could be to use more readily available metals (e.g. carbon steel). Although it might have to be replaced several times over its lifetime, the material cost of the heat exchanger would be more economical. In order to investigate if this is a viable alternative, a model was made. This model calculates the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a heat exchanger, taking into account the investment costs, maintenance costs and operational costs. A corrosion model is implemented allowing to specify the behaviour of a certain material in the fluid it is exposed to. Furthermore, the model allows to optimize the design to achieve a minimal TCO for a specific case. As a demonstration, the model is applied to the design and selection of an 5 MW heat exchanger for a binary geothermal power plant in Belgium, where the (corrosive) geothermal brine is used to heat water for a district heating network and an organic Rankine cycle.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• Carbon
• corrosion
• steel