Design of a liquid metals heat exchanger

The method that has been used in this design is that of the summation of the partial resistances to the heat transference, permitting to obtain the value of the total coefficient of heat transfer which will be equal to the reciprocal of the summation of all the resistances. The obtained exchanger is of tubes and rod type shield with the primary sodium flowing through the tubes and the secondary sodium flowing in counter-current through the shield. The shield has a nominal diameter of 6 inches and the bundle of tubes is formed by 31 tubes with a nominal diameter of 1/2 inch. The shield as well as the tubes are of stainless steel. The total heat transfer area is of 7.299 square meters, and the effective length of heat transfer is of 3.519 meters. After sizing the interchanger it was proceeded to simulate its functioning through a computer program in which the effective length of heat transfer was divided in 150 points in such a way that according to the integration of the distinct parameters along these points a comparison can finally be made between the design values and those of the simulation, which show a concordance. (author)