Process Heat Transfer

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Heat exchangers are devices built for efficient heat transfer from one fluid to another. They are widely used in engineering processes and include examples such as intercoolers, preheaters, boilers and condensers in power plants. Heat exchangers are becoming more and more important to manufacturers striving to control energy costs.

Process Heat Transfer Rules of Thumb investigates the design and implementation of industrial heat exchangers. It provides the background needed to understand and master the commercial software packages used by professional engineers for design and analysis of heat exchangers. This book focuses on the types of heat exchangers most widely used by industry, namely shell-and-tube exchangers (including condensers, reboilers and vaporizers), air-cooled heat exchangers and double-pipe (hairpin) exchangers. It provides a substantial introduction to the design of heat exchanger networks using pinch technology, the most efficient strategy used to achieve optimal recovery of heat in industrial processes.

• Utilizes leading commercial software important to professional engineers designing heat exchangers.
• Illustrates design procedures using complete step-by-step worked examples.
• Provides details on how to develop an initial configuration for a heat exchanger and how to systematically modify it to obtain a final design.
• Abundant example problems solved manually and with the integration of computer software.

Vice President, Research & Engineering Services, Heat Transfer Research, Inc, TX, USA. Tom Lestina has more than 30 years of engineering and project management experience.

Bob taught for more than 30 years in the Department of Chemical and Natural Gas Engineering at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. Prior to that, he was a senior research engineer at Monsanto and taught chemical engineering at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez.