Air cooled heat exchanger maintenance manual

Our products are engineered to order ensuring that your air cooler is designed and manufactured to exact specifications using the latest software available. Combined expertise and best practice, leading edge design and a fully streamlined system for maximum accuracy and responsiveness from quotation to delivery. Through our brands, Chart boasts a rich heritage of innovation and continuous improvement with hundreds of patented designs and thousands of products hard at work in plants around the globe.

Our acre site in Beasley, TX is the world's largest air cooled heat exchanger engineering and manufacturing facility. We also have an engineering center of excellence in Tulsa, OK. By combining Chart Lifecycle, Hudson Service and the aftermarket groups of our other legacy brands, Chart provides the industry's most comprehensive aftersales service and support for all air cooled heat exchangers, regardless of OEM.

We provide a range of resources for all our brands including brochures, model data sheets and technical papers. Combin-Aire air cooled heat exchangers combine humidified inlet air cooling with standard Fin-Fan technology for hot arid locations where availability of cooling water is limited. Models with specifications for our Air-X-Changers and Cooler Service Company brands serving the gas compression market.

This compact, unitized cooler combines engine and compressor cooling in a single unit. It is designed to deliver unrivalled performance and durability in the compressed natural gas industry.

World's largest air cooler engineering and manufacturing facility in Beasley, TX. Conveniently located 35 miles southwest of Houston, TX. Chart is also at the forefront of developing air cooled heat exchanger solutions for Direct Air Carbon Capture, which is an exciting clean energy application. Through our Air-X-Changers and Cooler Service Company brands Chart provides the broadest line of air coolers for natural gas compression, including engine, electric-motor and hydraulic driven configurations.

For detailed specifications of all available models visit the Spec Sheets section of our Technical Library. There are thousands of Hudson air cooled heat exchangers hard at work in plants all around the globe. Hudson started building its reputation pioneering the technology to solve urgent production problems in the field and today the Hudson brand is especially synonymous with reducing plot plans and costs for LNG and other mega energy projects.

Smithco is associated with design and manufacture of dependable, long-lasting, air cooled heat exchangers serving the specialized needs of the midstream sector including natural gas processing and transmission facilities, power generation and other heavy industries. Manually rotate fan to check clearance between blades and fan ring and fan guard.

Ensure the fan guard is in place prior to start up. All respective process fluid inlet and outlet nozzles are connected properly and correctly.

All drain and vent nozzles are to be opened and closed in accordance to system requirement. Remove temporary shipping clip if provided. Remove all shipment cover and its tie downs if attached. Check fan deck and drive assembly area to ensure all tools, bolts and nuts and other construction materials are removed. Vibration Switch. Ensure vibration switch are securely fasten prior to start up. Ensure termination cover for the vibration switch is properly closed.

Start-Up A. Start fan and check direction of rotation being anti-clockwise if viewed from under the fan. Run the fan for approximately 10 minutes. Check motor running ampere reading against rated ampere. Running ampere shall be lower than rated ampere under normal conditions. Check for excessive and abnormal noise and vibration.

Stop the fan after running for approximately 30 minutes for observing the fan as it come to resting position. Run the fan for a couple of hours to ensure proper and correct operation. Check bearings for abnormal temperature. Normal temperature may range from cool to warm to touch showing adequate grease. Too hot to touch for a few seconds showing inadequate grease and noisy. Introduction of Process Fluid 1. Open inlet valve slowly and let the process flow through and warm the bundles slowly to prevent and minimize thermal shock.

Extra specific precautions should be observed when handling lethal or hazardous fluid. Internal cleaning of tube i Mechanical Cleaning This method consist of utilizing drill head or wire brush with universal joint attached to a long metal rod.

The metal rod is rotated with an air or electrical tool or motor and flushing with water to clear the fouling material. Compressed air is use to purge dry after the cleaning process. This method of cleaning is not recommended for Tarry fouling materials.

Acid concentration shall be checked regularly, maintaining the strength by adding fresh acid. The high pressure jet is in place on the end of a hollow rod. Similar to the method used in mechanical cleaning, the rod is push through every tubes of tube bundle to clean it. The effective water jet pressure is determined through trial cleaning.

Usually softer fouling deposits require lower jet pressure. Note: Water used for cleaning shall meet chloride content of ppm as per PTS Otherwise the gaskets should be replaced. The header plug can be retightened to maximum ft-lbs.

If leak still exist, remove shoulder hex plug and gaskets and clean the spot face. Reinstall new shoulder hex plug and gasket and tighten at required torque until leakage resolve. The spot face may need to be repaired if the smooth finishes face is damage or badly rusted.

The spot face shall be repaired using tube facing and beveling machine, e. The most practical method is to insert tube plug into both end of tube. Before any decision is made to plug the tube, the thermal study shall be re-visited to ensure no heat transfer surface loss. If leakages develop in tube to tubesheet strength weld joint, the practical method is to insert tube plug into both end of tube. At these initial inspections, the items need to inspect shall as follows: a b Check all nuts for tightness to make certain that all were tightened properly at installation.

Check blade angle and running position. Turn off the unit and watch the blade tips. A looseness in the clamp bolt will permit a blade flatten in angle. This usually can be detected by looking at tips of the blades while the fan is slowing down. At same time, before the units comes to a complete stop, watch track of blade tips to see all blades move to the same operating position. Inspection of Hub.

Check the hub for any sign of bending or twisting of the hub tubes. Hub tubes cant be replaced in the field on manual fans and new hub should be order. Bushings are frequently cracked during a fan wreck and should be carefully inspected. Damaged may occur to the studs that attach the hub to the bushing. It is a good idea to replace the studs when replacing a damaged fan blade.

A-frame or V-frame air-cooled heat exchanger units are a compromise between the ground area requirement and exchanger performance. Thus it takes the shape of A or V. In steam condensing applications, the A-frame type Fig. Headers of air coolers are the boxes at the ends of the tubes which distribute the fluid from the piping to the tubes. The cover plate header design shall permit the removal of the cover without disturbing header piping connections.

The bonnet header design shall permit the removal of the bonnet with the minimum dismantling of header piping connections. Threaded plug holes shall be provided opposite the ends of each tube for access. Holes shall be threaded to the full depth of the plug sheet or 50 mm 2 inches , whichever is less. In addition to the above, The major differences between an Induced Draft and a Forced Draft Air Cooled Heat exchanger are listed below with respect to some design parameters:.

As one might expect the best kind of control scheme depends on the application. Does the process require a very tight control on the process outlet temperature or is it better to allow the process temperature to go down with the ambient air temp. Following is a list of some of the commonly used control devices for air coolers, but in no particular order. VFD if used shall suit the motor nameplate rating and similarly for the Belt Pulley transmission it shall suit the motor nameplate rating.

For extremely cold regions like Canada, Siberia, etc an air-cooled heat exchanger with an internal recirculation system is used. Such systems can control the cooling air temperature regardless of ambient temperature. Positive or Negative Step Auto variable fans are used for such systems.

By using one fixed-pitch fan blowing upward and one Auto-variable pitch fan, which is capable of negative pitch and thus of blowing air downward, it is possible to temper the air to the coldest portion of the tubes and thus prevents freezing.

Normally, forced draft units have the negative pitch fan at the outlet end, while induced draft units have the positive pitch fan at the outlet end. The performance and reliability of ACHE depend on proper inspection and maintenance of components. Regular maintenance and inspection of Air Cooler systems include. Refer to the below attached animated video for proper understanding and visualization of each part of a forced draft type air fin fan cooler.