고분자 첨가제에 의한 OTEC용 판형 열교환기의 마찰저항감소 효과 연구

Effect of Polymer Additives on Drag Reduction for a Plate Type Heat Exchanger in OTEC Applications

Experimental investigation has been carried out to determine drag reducing effects of polymer additives for a plate type heat exchanger(evaporator or condenser) in OTEC power plant applications, where the pressure drop in the heat exchangers takes up $70{\sim}80%$ of the total pumping power in the existing system. The rate of drag reduction was investigated with various polymer concentrations and mass flow rates. Experiments were undertaken for a test section in Alfa-Laval plate heat exchanger utilizing Poly Ethylene Oxide(Mw $5{\times}10^6$) as polymer additives. Concentrations of polymer additives were 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 200, 400 wppm at $25^{\circ}C$ and mass flow rates were 0.6kg/s, 0.7kg/s, 0.8kg/s and 0.9kg/s in normal operating ranges for a 15kW Alfa-Laval plate heat exchanger. The maximum effects of drag reductions were found at approximately 0.7kg/s of mass flow rate. The results show that there exists the optimum mass flow rate for the plate heat exchanger to obtain maximum drag reductions. Drag reduction of 20% means considerable savings in pumping power for a large size of OTEC plant.