The evolutionary design of condensers

A. Bejan (1) , J. Lee (2) , Sylvie Lorente (3) , Y. Kim (2)

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
2 Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co
3 LMDC - Laboratoire Matériaux et Durabilité des constructions

Condensers are flow architectures needed to provide high rates of condensation (or cooling) per unit volume, in enclosures with fixed volume. Their design has not changed from configurations consisting of the banks of horizontal tubes. In this paper, we outline a free path to evolving the design by exploring new features of flow configuration: flattened tubes, multiple tube sizes, arrays of flattened tubes, vertical tubes with turbulent film flow, forced convection condensation instead of gravity driven condensation, and the optimal length of a horizontal tube, i.e., the number of tubes in a column aligned with vapor cross flow. We show that the condensation density can be increased sizably by varying freely and without bias the morphology of the flow system: the shapes and arrangement of the cooled surfaces on which condensation occurs. The evolution of technology is described in terms of the special time direction of the useful (purposeful) changes in the configuration (shapes, arrangements) of surfaces on which flow/condensation occurs. This explains what "evolution" means. It is an important step for physics, not just technology.

Mots clés: film condensation; power-plant condenser

Domaines: Génie civil

A. Bejan, J. Lee, Sylvie Lorente, Y. Kim. The evolutionary design of condensers. Journal of Applied Physics, 2015, 117 (12), pp.125101. ⟨10.1063/1.4915505⟩. ⟨hal-01849740⟩