168. What Is Some Good Advice For Specifying Allowable Pressure Drops In Shell And Tube Exchangers For Heavy Hydrocarbons?
Frequently process engineers specify 5 or 10 PSI for allowable pressure drop inside heat exchanger tubing. For heavy liquids that have fouling characteristics, this is usually not enough. There are cases where the fouling excludes using tabulators and using more than the customary tube pressure drop is cost effective. This is especially true if there is a relatively higher heat transfer coefficient on the outside of the tubing.
