Tempco Blog articles

Radiators for higher efficiency in petrochemical plant in Oman

08/03/2024

For a major company in the Oil and Gas sector, Tempco has supplied a series of radiators aimed at cooling a bunch of generator sets on a petrochemical plant at the customer’s facility in Oman. The project aimed to replace the obsolete radiators in use at the production site, with the aim of increasing efficiency.

The radiators use pressure fans, due to the high temperatures of the air coming out of the facility, as they are in fact radiators that dissipate the high amounts of heat generated by endothermic engines. Due to the location of the installation, the protection of the thermal transfer pack was guaranteed with electrofin treatment for aggressive, saline/marine environments.

Tempco radiatori raffreddamento oil and gas Oman

Tempco radiatori raffreddamento oil and gas Oman petrolchimico

Tempco radiatori raffreddamento oil and gas Oman efficienza

The installation includes:

– n. 3 radiators of 700 kw each
– 12 fans for each radiator
– expansion tanks supplied as completion, equipped with electrical control panel

For shipping, the equipment was packed in a sea crate and using a barrier bag. The complete commissioning of the order, from design to supply, took a total of 10 months, and the results were of great satisfaction for the end user.

Tempco radiatori raffreddamento oil and gas Oman installazione

Tempco radiatori raffreddamento oil and gas Oman dissipazione gruppi elettrogeni

Tempco radiatori raffreddamento oil and gas Oman dissipazione calore

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Thermoregulating units in automotive radiator test bench

01/03/2024

Let’s speak about radiators, a very important component for the cooling of engine fluids in automotive. An interesting application of our thermoregulating units is indeed related to test bench for radiators employed within the automotive sector, and especially for high performance cars and motorsport and racing cars.

In fact, radiators employed in cars are heat exchangers aimed at cooling fluids of the engine, both water of the jackets or lubricating oil. Everyone knows the importance of the radiator, as it was also seen at the 24 Hours of Le Mans where the Ferrari #50 was hit by a stone directly in the radiator, which has been broken, damaging the radiator aimed at cooling an hybrid part of the engine and the vehicle was then forced to take a pit-stop, loosing its racing positions.

Well, our thermoregulating units are employed on test tunnels for automotive radiators, in fact for the simulation of the temperature of engine oil or of the water within jackets in order to verify the efficiency of these important components for endothermic engines. The temperature regulation is essential, because it is necessary in order to simulate with high precision the high temperature levels of the oil or of the water mixed with glycol inside the engine, with different temperature variations depending upon the conditions of use of the engine itself.

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Plate heat exchangers in emergency heat dissipation in ELSMOR experimental plant

23/02/2024

Tempco is participating in the project for the European project ELSMOR (European Licensing of Small MOdular Reactors) experimental nuclear plant with the supply of a plate heat exchanger (S-CSG, Safety-Compact Steam Generator) employed as a device for passive decay heat removal in case of nuclear reactor fault.

This is the first plant in the world developed using a plate heat exchanger for the emergency cooling system that works by natural convection circulation, therefore without pumps or the need of electricity, to cool the reactor while it turns safe. The exchanger is therefore a key component of the Decay Heat Removal System (DHRS) of the ELSMOR project, as part of the experimental campaign carried out at SIET, described in detail in this article.

Tempco scambiatore di calore a piastre dissipazione calore decadimento reattore nucleare ELSMOR

S-CSG plate heat exchanger before installation

The exchanger supplied by Tempco is a compact, high-efficiency type that uses corrugated plates to maximize the heat transfer surface. The S-CSG specifically acts as an interface between the primary circuit (reactor side) and the secondary circuit (natural side with dissipation in a water pool) of the DHRS system. The hot fluid of the primary circuit then transfers its heat to the fluid of the secondary circuit through the plates of the exchanger. The secondary fluid, in turn, dissipates heat into the water pool through another heat exchanger.

Tempco scambiatore di calore a piastre dissipazione calore decadimento reattore nucleare ELSMOR circuito primario

View of primary side of ELSMOR plant and S-CSG

The S-CSG is therefore a fundamental component for the safety of the reactor in case of an accident. In the event of a coolant loss, the S-CSG can remove waste heat from the reactor and prevent overheating.

The plate exchanger in the system offers a number of advantages:

High heat exchange efficiency
Compact dimensions
Easy maintenance
Low cost

Tempco scambiatore di calore a piastre dissipazione calore decadimento reattore nucleare ELSMOR circuito secondario

View of secondary side of ELSMOR plant and S-CSG

The tests conducted on the ELSMOR system therefore demonstrates the effectiveness of the S-CSG in removing waste heat. The results showed that the exchanger is capable of operating stably under a wide range of operating conditions.

A key element of the DHRS system of the ELSMOR project, the heat exchanger therefore proves itself to be an ideal choice for the removal of decay heat from nuclear reactors thanks to its efficiency, reliability and compactness. For the prototype plant, which served for the characterization and testing of the system, a TCB exchanger was supplied, a solution that clearly will not be possible to use in the executive phase. Through the next developments of the project, for the specific application we will study a special dedicated plate heat exchanger, which could be a PCHE (Printed circuit heat exchanger) type.

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Sustainable thermal energy in the key of Tempco.green

16/02/2024

There is a new video in our Tempco Youtube channel to welcome everyone to the new Tempco.green website, a new website dedicated to the innovative products and solutions we are developing, and that we have already developed in the latest months and recent years, aimed at fostering the energy transition.

There is a lot talking about it, and the topic is definitely trending and ‘hot’, as well as hype, and in Tempco we believe we have achieved a solid expertise in this field so that we wanted to share this innovative green know-how with you through a new dedicated website.

We felt the urge to put online with Tempco.green the green solutions for temperature control that we have developed during these last years especially aimed at increasing energy efficiency even in plants dedicated to second level energy, that means the thermal energy. And so, for a sustainable thermal energy management in industrial processes.

As you know, recently we have increasingly developed thermoregulating units equipped with power adjustment systems, using thyristors, and we widely employ drives with electronic variable speed control, on pumps, fans, and everywhere they can be applied. This is aimed at fostering a more efficient management of thermal energy in industrial production processes.

This new Tempco.green website is a collection of all of the case studies and applications we did and that we will develop in the future in the field of green energy transition and sustainability.

We invite you then to discover and create together the future of sustainable thermal energy.

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Chillers, exchangers and separators for biogas treatment

08/02/2024

We haven’t talked about the biogas sector in a while, but it is still a very important sector for Tempco, in which we continue to be very active and present, supplying systems for this kind of applications.

Also in 2023 we have installed a fair number of biogas plants, all equipped complete with chiller, heat exchanger and condensate separator.

Tempco biogas impianti trattamento chiller scambiatori

All systems are always supplied in full configuration and are delivered ready for installation. Speaking about biogas, of particular interest are therefore the latest applications in the paper mill sector, with the aim of reducing polluting emissions. In fact, paper mills have a high potential for the production of biogas and biomethane, as the production cycle of a paper mill generates large amounts of waste water rich in biodegradable COD (chemical oxygen demand), which lends itself to being treated and valorised for the production of biogas.

Tempco biogas impianti trattamento chiller scambiatori separatore

Tempco biogas impianti trattamento chiller scambiatori separatore condense

Tempco biogas impianti trattamento chiller scambiatori installato

Tempco biogas impianti trattamento chiller scambiatori installazione

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Diffusion bonding for high performance plate heat exchangers

02/02/2024

Let’s talk again about heat exchangers, but more specifically about Diffusion Bonding, a special construction process of exchangers related to plate heat exchangers.

We all know that several kinds of plate heat exchangers exist: inspectable exchangers, brazed plate exchangers, fully welded plate heat exchangers and, furthermore, there is a kind of full inox plate heat exchangers which are made using this special processing technology called diffusion bonding.

In fact, this is an innovative welding process that allows to join two similar or different metals through a sort of permeation of the metals’ crystalline structure. And at much lower temperatures of those required for the melting process of the metals.

How is it possible? I’m not going too much in depth with details, which can be found online. Essentially, the exchangers are placed inside special furnaces, under vacuum conditions, where they reach temperatures equal to 65, 70 or 75% than the melting temperature and under pressure the permeation of the crystalline structure is achieved. Therefore, the process generates extremely resistant welding joints without material addiction and with no additional weight.

This special construction process has many applications in a variety of sectors including main sectors such as aerospace, oil and gas and also the hydrogen industry which is actually a really emerging trend sector.

These exchangers offer a lot of advantages and some disadvantage. Among the disadvantages is the construction process that increases costs, because it employs special furnaces and a very peculiar processing that requires long cycle times and thus higher costs.

On the side of advantages, the fact that these are exchangers made in a unique material and fully welded and so they offer a very high resistance to extremely high pressures and temperature levels. This technology can be applied both to stainless steel exchangers and in titanium, but also to different materials, where the technology becomes a little more complicated.

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Tempco Green, a new thermal energy for a solid sustainability

26/01/2024

Green innovation in thermal energy management and temperature tasks for the process industry require responsibility and imagination. For some years now, Tempco’s commitment to develop industrial thermoregulation solutions has pursued not only the target of achieving maximum energy efficiency, but also to bring sustainability and renewable energy in temperature regulation solutions.

We our therefore quite proud to announce that this path today leads to the birth of Tempco.green, a new space expressly dedicated to thermal energy management solutions with a Green footprint, embracing new technologies to accompany companies within the process industry on a common path towards a future sustainable production. Solid Sustainability is the claim of this new era in Tempco, and the new energy that fuels the solutions that we want to study together with customers to bring sustainability into production processes in all industrial sectors.

A new energy, green solutions and renewables, energy saving and cutting-edge technologies, from the innovative PCHE exchangers for applications in the hydrogen industry and CO2 refrigeration, to the TCOIL immersion exchangers in applications that exploit heat pumps and geothermal energy; from fuel cells to new solutions for green mobility in the automotive and marine sectors. Up to digitalization for an increasingly fine and more intelligent monitoring and optimization of energy consumption in industrial processes.

We invite you to enter and discover the Tempco.green world, to create together the New era of sustainability in the process industry.

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Calculation formula of the thermal buffer tank in chillers

19/01/2024

Let’s bring back a subject that has been already treated in a previous video on our Tempco YouTube channel explaining how to calculate the buffer volume in chillers, which is the volume of a thermal buffer tank.
Indeed, someone pointed out that there were no formula explaining how to calculate it.

Let’s start saying that it is first of all a check, because during the design step, we need to know some informations and data: these are the working temperature of the chiller which is the temperature of the cold water that the chiller is intended to provide and that is going to be stored inside the tank. Furthermore, the temperature of the warm fluid arriving from the process. The overall volume of the plant and the buffer tank volume we have estimated. Why these four data are requested?

Tempco calcolo volume serbatoio di accumulo gruppi frigoriferi

Because with a very simple formula, which is showed in the video and here above, we can define if with this kind of volume and temperature levels involved the temperature arriving at the chiller will be the right design temperature, in other words, checking if the return temperature to the chiller won’t be too high.
As it was explained in the previous video, that’s because if a too high temperature arrives to the chiller, the chiller goes in fault, evaporation temperature raises as well as condensation pressure, and the chiller gets blocked.

And furthermore, it causes a rise in the temperature that cause a block of the overall production plant.

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Natural refrigerants and how to calculate plate heat exchangers

12/01/2024

Among the measures to contrast climate change in industry, there is certainly the increasing transition to equipment that uses environmentally friendly refrigerants, with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, the use of environmentally friendly refrigerants, such as R290, is subject to strict regulations, and the filling quantity of the equipment must be carefully monitored. This is a very important topic, as highlighted in a recent article published by Kaori, our technological partner for plate heat exchangers.

The need to carefully calculate the quantity of natural refrigerant poses a great challenge in product design, making the calculation of the volume of the heat exchanger even more crucial.

In particular, the article highlights how the performance of a heat pump is related to several factors such as the heat transfer area (HTA), the heat transfer coefficient (U) and the logarithmic mean delta T (LMTD) of the heat exchanger. However, the system sizing rule is even more complex, as it also includes other factors such as refrigerant charge, expansion valve superheat adjustment, refrigerant side volume and heat exchanger pressure drop, and it is impossible to consider just one parameter.

When considering the replacement of a brazed plate heat exchanger of another brand with a Kaori exchanger, it is therefore necessary to consider the following:

1. The declared catalogue value and the actual volume value of the product of other brands may differ, therefore it is recommended to use it only as a reference. Also, if a refrigerant distributor is installed in the heat exchanger, this may affect the effective volume value. Therefore, the exact volume can be measured after filling it with water.

2. The volume of the heat exchanger should not be the main parameter driving the replacement; the corresponding relevant system parameters should instead be considered.

Tempco calcolo scambiatori di calore refrigeranti naturali Kaori brazed plate

A practical example can be of help in this regard: a brand XXH62-60 (refrigerant side volume approximately 2.73 L) corresponds to the same volume of a Kaori R111 brazed plate heat exchanger (BPHE), which requires 66 plates, with a consequent total number of plates and total excess heat exchange area (+18%). Furthermore, the refrigerant flow rate decreases, the saturated evaporation temperature increases due to the pressure drop, and if the expansion valve and refrigerant volume do not match, this can adversely affect the final performance.

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Tempco Green Greetings, Happy Warm and Sustainable Holidays!

22/12/2023

This time of year has come, and the Tempco team would like to wish everyone a Great Holiday season, have a Merry and Warm Christmas and a Happy and always more Sustainable New 2024.

A New Year in the sign of increasingly and more innovative Green solutions for temperature regulation and an efficient thermal energy management.

Tempco Green Greetings! #SolidSustainability

Tempco Green Greetings 2023

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