Abstract
As operating time of heat exchangers progresses, fouling generated by water-borne deposits and the number of plugged tubes increase and thermal performance decreases. Both fouling and tube plugging are known to interfere with normal flow characteristics and to reduce thermal efficiencies of heat exchangers. The heat exchangers of domestic nuclear power plants have been analyzed in terms of the heat flux and heat transfer coefficient at test conditions as a means of heat exchanger management. Except for the fouling level generated in operation of heat exchangers, also, all of the tubes of heat exchangers have been replaced when the number of plugged tubes exceeds the plugging criteria based on design performance sheet. This paper describes the plugging margin evaluation mettled reflected the fouling of shell-and-tube heat exchangers, which can evaluate the thermal performance for heat exchangers, estimate the future fouling variations, and reflect the current fouling level. To identify the effectiveness of the developed method, the fouling and plugging margin evaluations were performed for a component cooling heat exchanger in a nuclear power plant.