Economizer
This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2011) |
Economizers (US and
Stirling engine
Robert Stirling's innovative contribution to the design of hot air engines of 1816 was what he called the 'Economiser'. Now known as the regenerator, it stored heat from the hot portion of the engine as the air passed to the cold side, and released heat to the cooled air as it returned to the hot side. This innovation improved the efficiency of the Stirling engine enough to make it commercially successful in particular applications, and has since been a component of every air engine that is called a Stirling engine.
Boilers
In boilers, economizers are heat exchange devices that heat fluids, usually water, up to but not normally beyond the boiling point of that fluid. Economizers are so named because they can make use of the enthalpy in fluid streams that are hot, but not hot enough to be used in a boiler, thereby recovering more useful enthalpy and improving the boiler's efficiency. They are a device fitted to a boiler which saves energy by using the exhaust gases from the boiler to preheat the cold water used to fill it (the feed water).
Steam boilers use large amounts of energy raising feed water to the boiling temperature, converting the water to steam and sometimes superheating that steam above saturation temperature. Heat transfer efficiency is improved when the highest temperatures near the combustion sources are used for boiling and superheating, while using the residual heat of the cooled combustion gases exhausting from the boiler through an economizer to raise the temperature of feed water entering the steam drum.
An indirect contact or direct contact condensing economizer will recover the residual heat from the combustion products. A series of dampers, an efficient control system, as well as a ventilator, allow all or part of the combustion products to pass through the economizer, depending on the demand for make-up water and/or process water. The temperature of the gases can be lowered from the boiling temperature of the fluid to little more than the incoming feed water temperature while preheating that feed water to the boiling temperature. High pressure boilers typically have larger economizer surfaces than low pressure boilers. Economizer tubes often have projections like fins to increase the heat transfer surface on the combustion gas side.[1] On average over the years,[clarification needed] boiler combustion efficiency has risen from 80% to more than 95%. The efficiency of heat produced is directly linked to boiler efficiency. The percentage of excess air and the temperature of the combustion products are two key variables in evaluating this efficiency.
The combustion of natural gas needs a certain quantity of air in order to be complete, so the burners need a flow of excess air in order to operate. Combustion produces water steam, and the quantity depends on the amount of natural gas burned. Also, the evaluation of the dew point depends on the excess air. Natural gas has different combustion efficiency curves linked to the temperature of the gases and the excess air. For example, if the gases[clarification needed] are chilled to 38 °C and there is 15% excess air, then the efficiency will be 94%.[citation needed] The condensing economizer can thus recover the sensible and latent heat in the steam condensate contained in the flue gases for the process. The economizer is made of an aluminium and stainless steel alloy.[citation needed] The gases pass through the cylinder, and the water passes through the finned tubes. It condenses about 11% of the water contained in the gases.[citation needed]
History
The first successful economizer design was used to increase the steam-raising efficiency of the boilers of stationary steam engines. It was patented by Edward Green in 1845, and since then has been known as Green's economiser. It consisted of an array of vertical cast iron tubes connected to a tank of water above and below, between which the boiler's exhaust gases passed. This is the reverse arrangement to that usually but not always seen in the fire tubes of a boiler; there the hot gases usually pass through tubes immersed in water, whereas in an economizer the water passes through tubes surrounded by hot gases. While both are heat exchange devices, in a boiler the burning gases heat the water to produce steam to drive an engine, whether piston or turbine, whereas in an economizer, some of the heat energy that would otherwise all be lost to the atmosphere is instead used to heat the water and/or air that will go into the boiler, thus saving fuel. The most successful feature of Green's design of economizer was its mechanical scraping apparatus, which was needed to keep the tubes free of deposits of soot.
Economizers were eventually fitted to virtually all stationary steam engines in the decades following Green's invention. Some preserved stationary steam engine sites still have their Green's economisers although usually they are not used. One such preserved site is the Claymills Pumping Engines Trust in Staffordshire, England, which is in the process of restoring one set of economisers and the associated steam engine which drove them. Another such example is the British Engineerium in Brighton & Hove, where the economiser associated with the boilers for Number 2 Engine is in use, complete with its associated small stationary engine. A third site is Coldharbour Mill Working Wool Museum, where the Green's economiser is in working order, complete with the drive shafts from the Pollit and Wigzell steam engine.
Power plants
Modern-day boilers, such as those in coal-fired power stations, are still fitted with economizers which are descendants of Green's original design. In this context they are often referred to as feedwater heaters and heat the condensate from turbines before it is pumped to the boilers.
Economizers are commonly used as part of a
A common application of economizers in steam power plants is to capture the waste heat from boiler stack gases (flue gas) and transfer it to the boiler feedwater. This raises the temperature of the boiler feedwater, lowering the needed energy input, in turn reducing the firing rates needed for the rated boiler output. Economizers lower stack temperatures which may cause condensation of acidic combustion gases and serious equipment corrosion damage if care is not taken in their design and material selection.
HVAC
A building's HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) system can make use of an air-side economizer to save energy in buildings by using cool outside air as a means of cooling the indoor space. When the temperature of the outside air is less than the temperature of the recirculated air, conditioning with the outside air is more energy efficient than conditioning with recirculated air. When the outside air is both sufficiently cool and sufficiently dry (depending on the climate) the amount of enthalpy in the air is acceptable and no additional conditioning of it is needed; this portion of the air-side economizer control scheme is called free cooling.
Air-side economizers can reduce
When the outside air's dry- and wet-bulb temperatures are low enough, a water-side economizer can use water cooled by a wet
Good controls, and valves or dampers, as well as maintenance, are needed to ensure proper operation of the air- and water-side economizers.
Refrigeration
Cooler Economizer
A common form of refrigeration economizer is a "walk-in cooler economizer" or "outside air refrigeration system". In such a system outside air that is cooler than the air inside a refrigerated space is brought into that space and the same amount of warmer inside air is ducted outside. The resulting cooling supplements or replaces the operation of a compressor-based refrigeration system. If the air inside a cooled space is only about 5 °F warmer than the outside air that replaces it (that is, the ∆T>5 °F) this cooling effect is accomplished more efficiently than the same amount of cooling resulting from a compressor based system. If the outside air is not cold enough to overcome the refrigeration load of the space the compressor system will need to also operate, or the temperature inside the space will rise.
Vapor-Compression Refrigeration
Another use of the term occurs in industrial refrigeration, specifically
An economizer display takes advantage of the fact that
The economizer concept is linked to
Economizer setups in refrigeration
Several configurations of the refrigeration cycle incorporate an economizer, and benefit from this idea. The design of these systems requires expertise and extra components. Pressure drop, electronic valve control, and oil drag, must all be considered.
Two staged systems and boosters
A system is said to be a two staged set-up if two
A standard two staged cycle of this kind has an expansion valve that expands and modulates the amount of refrigerant incoming at the interstage. As the fluid arriving at the interstage expands, it will tend to evaporate, producing a temperature drop and cooling the second compressor's suction when mixed with the fluid discharged by the first compressor. This kind of set-up may have a heat exchanger between the expansion and the interstage, which may be a second evaporator to produce an additional refrigeration effect, though not as cool as the main evaporator (for example to produce air conditioning or for keeping fresh products). A two staged system is said to be set-up as a booster with subcooling, if the refrigerant arriving at the interstage passes through a subcooling heat exchanger that subcools the main liquid line arriving at the main evaporator of the same system.[4]
Economizer gas compressors
The need to use two
There are two types of economizer setups for these compressors,
Subcooling and refrigeration cycle optimizers
The above systems produce an economizer effect by using compressors, meters, valves and heat exchangers within the refrigeration cycle. In some refrigeration systems the economizer can be an independent refrigeration mechanism. Such is the case of subcooling the liquid line by any other means that draws the heat out of the main system. For example, a heat exchanger that preheats cold water needed for another process or human use, may take heat from the liquid line, effectively subcooling it and increasing the system's capacity.[6]
Recently, machines exclusively designed for this purpose have been developed. In Chile, the manufacturer EcoPac Systems developed a cycle optimizer able to stabilize the temperature of the liquid line and allow either an increase in the refrigeration capacity of the system, or a reduction of the
Internal heat exchangers
Subcooling may also be produced by
An internal heat exchanger is simply a heat exchanger that uses the cold gas leaving the evaporator coil to cool the high-pressure liquid that is headed into the beginning of the evaporator coil via an expansion device. The gas is used to chill a chamber that normally has a series of pipes for the liquid running through it. The superheated gas then proceeds on to the compressor. The subcooling term refers to cooling the liquid below its boiling point. 10 °F (5.6 °C) of subcooling means it is 10 °F colder than boiling at a given pressure. As it represents a difference of temperatures, the subcooling value is not measured on an absolute temperature scale, only on a relative scale as a temperature difference.
See also
References
- ^ Principles of Naval Engineering. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Publishing Office. 1970. pp. 239 & 240.
- ^ "Energy Cost and IAQ Performance of Ventilation Systems and Controls Study". US Environmental Protection Agency. 3 July 2014.
- ^ Danfos, The Influence of Subcooling on Refrigeration Control Quality. Page 2. [1]
- ^ Danfos, The Influence of Subcooling on Refrigeration Control Quality. Page 6. [2]
- ^ "Product database - SWEP". www.swep.net.
- ^ "APS Bussinss Service, Refrigeration Efficiency Measures". Archived from the original on June 2, 2012.
- ^ Pesca y Medioambiente Nº45, New Challenges on Refrigeration, Cycle Optimizers.[3]
- ^ "Noticias de proveedores". April 12, 2003. Archived from the original on January 15, 2013.
- ^ Refrigerant Subcooling and System Efficiency, The influence of refrigerant subcooling on system efficiency.
- ISBN 0-521-45834-X.