The Characteristics of Bubbles in a Column Heat Exchanger for the Application of Direct Contact LNG Evaporator

직접접촉식 LNG기화기 응용을 위한 칼럼 열교환기 기포특성에 관한 연구

In the present investigation, it has been proposed to utilize a direct contact heat exchanger as an evaporator to solve the difficulties such as scaling, corrosion and law thermal efficiencies, associated with the conventional evaporator. Liquified nitrozen was utilized as a working fluid to investigate basic natures of bubble dynamics in the evaporator, and spray nozzles were adopted to inject liquified nitrozen into the spray column with varying flow rates of dispersed phase fluids. Experimentations were carried out in the range of $6.54{\times}10^{-4}kg/s$ - 0.030 kg/s for dispersed phase flow rates with one, three and five nozzle holes. Observing the bubble dynamics for the evaporator the feasibility of utilizing a direct contact heat exchanger as a LNG evaporator has been evaluated. The results show that no eruption phenomena was observed in the present investigation with $LN_2$ and the interface between $N_2$ bubbles and water was fully turbulent. It is believed that the high injection velocity of $LN_2$ through the spray nozzles provide good mixing effects for both heat and mass transfers between water and $N_2$ bubbles. Ice was formed on the surface of the spray nozzle for higher $LN_2$ flow rates. However, even in this case, it is observed that the ice was detached as soon as it was formed. Under the present experimental conditions, the shapes of $LN_2$ bubbles were in the spherical-cap region according to the Clift, Grace and Weber Graphs. The height of foam region caused by the breakup of larger bubbles keeps increasing with high injection velocities until it reaches it's maximum height.