Cell-based dynamic heat exchanger models - Direct determination of the cell number and size

Large amounts of thermal energy are transferred between fluids for heating or cooling in industry as well as in the residential and service sectors. Typical examples are crude oil preheating, ethylene plants, pulp and paper plants, breweries, plants with exothermic and endothermic reactions, space heating, and coolccepted 17 January 2011 vailable online 25 January 2011 eywords: ynamic heat exchanger modelling ing or refrigeration of food and beverages. Heat exchangers frequently operate under varying conditions. Their appropriate use in flexible heat exchanger networks as well as maintenance/reliability related calculations requires adequate models for estimating their dynamic behaviour. Cell-based dynamic models are very often used to represent heat exchangerswith varying arrangements. The current paper describes a directmethod and a visualisation technique for determining the number of themodelling cells and their ell models eat exchanger networks ontrollability size.