Evaporative wet surface air cooler
AssigneeAlfa Laval Corporate AB
InventorsKevin Shahrpass, Christian Pawlak, Christian Andersson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A wet surface air cooler (WSAC), including an evaporative spiral heat exchanger for flowing a process medium therethrough, a spray system for spraying a cooling medium directly onto the spiral heat exchanger and a fan for causing air to flow through the evaporative spiral heat exchanger, the combination of the sprayed cooling medium onto the evaporative spiral heat exchanger and the air flowing therethrough causes the cooling medium to at least partially evaporate to lower the temperature of the process medium.
Claims19
A wet surface air cooler (WSAC), comprising:
- an evaporative spiral heat exchanger including:
- a first channel extending substantially an entire height of the evaporative spiral heat exchanger and configured to receive a process medium;
- an inlet;
- and
- an outlet;
- a spray system configured to spray a cooling medium onto the spiral heat exchanger;
- and
- a fan configured to force air to flow through the evaporative spiral heat exchanger,
- wherein the combination of the sprayed cooling medium onto the evaporative spiral heat exchanger and the air flowing through the evaporative spiral heat exchanger causes the cooling medium to at least partially evaporate to cause a temperature of the process medium to decrease and
- wherein the first channel begins at a cross-sectional center of the evaporative spiral heat exchanger and spirals radially outward to the outlet of the evaporative spiral heat exchanger.
A method of cooling with a wet surface air cooler (WSAC), the WSAC comprising:
- an evaporative spiral heat exchanger including:
- a first channel extending substantially an entire height of the evaporative spiral heat exchanger and configured to receive a process medium;
- an inlet;
- and
- an outlet;
- a spray system configured to spray a cooling medium onto the spiral heat exchanger;
- and
- a fan configured to force air to flow through the evaporative spiral heat exchanger, the method comprising:
- flowing the process medium through the first channel;
- and
- simultaneously spraying, by the spray system, the cooling medium and operating the fan to flow air through the evaporative heat exchanger and cause the cooling medium to at least partially evaporate and cause a temperature of the process medium to decrease,
- wherein the first channel begins at a cross-sectional center of the evaporative spiral heat exchanger and spirals radially outward to the outlet of the evaporative spiral heat exchanger.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.