ABSTRACT
Maximizing plant efficiency requires extensive use of heat exchange for energy recovery. Thus, heat transfer plays an important role in most gas processing steps. Next to compression, heat exchangers commonly are the largest capital expense in a gas plant. This chapter gives:
• An overview of the three ways heat flows from a higher temperature to a lower temperature • A brief discussion of sources for cooling and heating • A brief description of commonly used heat exchanger types • A discussion of condensers • A discussion of reboilers
Only the briefest introduction to heat transfer is given. For more details on heat transfer in general the reader should refer to heat transfer or unit operations books, e.g., Cengal, (2007), Holman (2002), Incropera and DeWitt (2001), and McCabe et al. (2004). The Engineering Data Book (2004a-c) provides more detail on several types of heat exchange equipment and gives guidelines for design for several types of heat exchangers.
