Introduction to the types and characteristics of condensers

According to the different cooling media, condensers can be divided into three categories: water-cooled condensers, air-cooled condensers, and evaporative condensers. Water cooled condensers use water as the cooling medium, and the condensation heat is carried away by the heating of water. Water cooled condensers can be divided into shell and tube condensers and sleeve condensers according to their structural forms. The more common type is shell and tube condensers, which can be further divided into vertical shell and tube condensers and horizontal shell and tube condensers.

The main characteristics of a vertical shell and tube condenser are:
1. High cooling flow rate, high flow rate, and high heat transfer coefficient;
2. Vertical installation has a small footprint and can be installed outdoors;
3. Cooling water flows directly and has a high flow rate, which does not require high water quality. Generally, water sources can be used as cooling water;
4. The scale inside the pipe is easy to remove and there is no need to stop the refrigeration system;
5. The water consumption is high, and due to the equipment being placed in the air, the pipes are prone to corrosion, making it easier to detect leaks.

Horizontal shell and tube condensers have a similar shell structure to vertical condensers, with the main difference being the horizontal placement of the shell and the multi-channel flow of water.

The advantages of a sleeve type condenser are its simple structure, ease of manufacturing, and good heat transfer effect due to the reverse flow of the medium due to single tube condensation. Its disadvantage is that it consumes a large amount of metal, and when there are many longitudinal tubes, the lower tubes are filled with more liquid, which makes the heat transfer area not fully utilized. In addition, it has poor compactness, is difficult to clean, and requires a large number of elbows to be connected.

Air cooled condensers use air as the cooling medium, and the condensation heat is carried away by the temperature rise of the air. This type of condenser is suitable for situations where water is extremely scarce or cannot be supplied. According to different air flow modes, it can be divided into two types: natural convection and forced convection. The heat exchange of evaporative condensers mainly relies on the evaporation and absorption of gasification latent heat by cooling water in the air. According to the flow mode, they can be divided into suction type and pressure type. Evaporative condensers are composed of cooling pipe group, water supply equipment, ventilation fan, water baffle and box body.

The cooling pipe group is a serpentine coil group made of seamless steel pipes, which is installed in a rectangular box made of thin steel plates. There are ventilation fans on both sides or top of the box, and the bottom of the box also serves as a cooling water circulation pool. It is a parallel device based on evaporative condenser and shell and tube condenser.

Source: Network