what is the function of heat exchanger in oil and gas industry?
Heat Exchanger Oil And Gas
Hi man, well, first of all it has the same function as in any other industry, i.e. to transfer heat from one medium to another. There are many kinds of heat exchangers (see wikipedia) but in the oil and gas industry I would say that the most used are: Cover Plate Heat Exchangers used for dirty fluids with low design pressures Pipe Bend Heat Exchangers used for very high pressure applications such as reinjection, liquefied natural gas and pipeline. Plug Box Heat Exchangers used for example for cooling and condensing hydrocarbons and gases
A heat exchanger is a device that allows heat energy in one process fluid to pass to another process fluid in a controlled manner. Usually, a shell outer with a tubular inner section. Steam or hot oil is passed through the pipe bundle inner which heats up the fluid on the outside of the tubes. An alternatively to this is the plate heat exchanger which does the same thing but instead of tubes it has special slim plates with water ways or steam ways on one side and process ways on the other. Heat transfers across the plates and an exchange of energy takes place. Outlet temperature is controlled by instrumentation. A sensor in the outlet provides a signal to a controller which has a desired temperature set point and which sends another signal to a control valve in the hot steam or oil flow.
