What is heat exchanger maintenance ?
The heat exchanger maintenance consists in cleaning the bundle of inner tubes and the outer cleaning of the cloak.
The maintenance procedure is carried out in three phases:
What is a heat exchanger ?
A heat exchanger is an apparatus where the exchange of heat energy occurs between two different fluids at different temperatures.
The most used is what is known as “tubular beam and cloak exchanger“, as its large surface structure allows to exchange large quantities of heat.
This type of exchanger has a cylindrical shape, formed by a container called the mantle, where a bundle of tubes passes through each of them, both of which are crossed by the fluids.
The most common malfunction is called Fouling.
heat exchanger maintenance
Fouling is the deposit of solid material inside the pipes, transported by fluids or precipitation products such as limestone, this clogging of the pipes leads to a reduction in the heat transfer coefficient and in conclusion a worse performance of the exchanger itself.
What to do?
Periodically maintain a heat exchanger maintenance.
1 – Tube bundle extraction procedure
The bundle extractor or bundle puller consists in extracting the exchanger from its shell through the
Ad hoc machines, called aerial tube bundle extractor having a variable pull power, depending on the size of the exchanger itself.
2 – Tube bundle transport procedure
The tube bundle transport procedure can be carried out in two different ways, depending on the height where the exchanger is located.
For large heights the transport will be carried out first by using cranes and later with ad hoc called straddle carrier cars, for lower heights it would be enough to use truck mounted or self propelled.
Click on it fo more information about bundle transport
3 – Tube bundle cleaning procedure
The cleaning process of the tube bundles consists of the pulp of the same thanks to robots that wash away the deposits both internally and externally, through high pressure jet jets.
Click on it fo more information about bundle cleaning
4 – Tube insertion procedure
The insertion of the bundle consists in re-inserting the exchanger into its own shell through the aerial bundle extractor themselves after the cleaning phase.
What is the Bundle Extractor Procedure ?
The Bundle Extractor or bundle puller procedure is the first phase of one of the four processes for maintaining the heat exchanger, which has as its purpose the output of the tube bundle from its shell.
This first step is done by means of ad hoc machines called tube bundle extractors.
Idrojet srl. has designed different types of extractors those equipped with cranes called aerial bundle extractors and those without these truck mounted, both for the same purpose but used for different cases based on the location of the heat exchanger.
For heights above 7 mt, the bundle puller used are airplanes, and by means of an extruder crane are positioned to the desired height.
Less than 7 meters long, Idrojet srl has produced self-propelled and truck mounted which allow not only to extract the tube bundle without the use of any external crane, but to transport it autonomously by avoiding the use of the straddle carrier, saving so much time and money, so a single car for the first and second stages.
Wacth the bundle extraction with aerial bundle extrator
our Aerial bundle extractor machine’s list:
Wacth the bundle extraction with truck mounted
our bundle puller with crane
Tube bundle Insertion last step
The first step and last step, is the insertion, are carried out with the same bundle extractors.
Below an example of heat exchanger maintance where tube bundle insertion after the heat exchanger cleaning procedure … watch it below.
If you want rental the bundle extractor visit www.idmitaly.com