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We removed some intercoolers from a generator recently.Generators use Hydrogen gas instead of regular air as a heat transfer medium. The tubes have water flow on the inside and on the outside of the tubes they have fins that surround the individual tube in a circular pattern. Kind of like many washers, but thinner, attached to each tube. Would this be more eficient than a car radiator type cooler.? I am thinking intercoolers on blowers or "after coolers".
Put up a photo, so we can see what you are talking about. If it looks good, I'll purchase one from you and make an intercooler out of it. Then we can test it on the local dyno. Air flow vs. temp change.
Those are called shell and tube heat exchangers. They were used back in the day. Banks used Harrison coolers that were of that design. If yours have cuppernickel tubes they will work ok. But they do not have as much surface area as todays coolers. But with that said it could get pretty close if you compare it to an alum core vers a cuppernickel shell and tube core.
They seem to be of mostly copper content. I am unable to bring a camera into the plant. They are are as I described.Shell and tube description is very general. that description assumes they have a shell around them. These are free like 25 ft long packaged into an end plate on each end each end plate has maybe 15-20 holes. the copper rings and tube transfer heat to water. The shell would be the generator itself, they are around the stator windings. I was thinking this would be more efficient than the fin / row type of coolers. Maybe somebody that is a thermodynamics or mechanical engineer could calculate the sufrace area, and would it an improvement.
the end plates are called tube sheets. You pretty much discribed a classic shell and tube heat exchanger. And yes, the shell is pretty much the housing. Oil coolers are shell and tube also. If you buy them from the manufacture you get your choice of tube size and material. I worked in that industry for the last 16 years. Now I left and low and behold my shop is right next door to Exchanger Works. So now I'm always making flanges and tube sheets for them. Just can't seem to get away. I'm sure those are true cupper nickel tubes. They look like copper and cost big bucks.
Are they scraping this things? If so grap em up. If you were to make your own housing and tube sheets I could prolly get the tubes swaged into the sheets for you. There is some funky tool that does that. It looks like a cross between an air chisel and a tube bead roller. It's a very spendy little item.
Back in the day that's all you saw in tubo intercoolers. Now the cuppernickel radiator style is taking over as the one to have.
I did some bench testing when I got my superchiller. All the engineers where I worked were very impressed with it's performance. That had an alum core. The new whipple cuppernickel core would even be better.
I have the same style finned cuppernickel tube in my Menkens v drive to cool the oil.
Dude, if you took a truck full of those tubes down to a recycler you would be shocked at how much you will get.
Well, I cannot get my fingers on these as of yet. They have 50% of the tubes plugged in each end of the tube sheet., By the way your educating me on the terms and technology,I always wondered how they connected them to the ends, "sheets".Thanks for your input. The sheets are 1/2 inch in thickness and they apparently can be rebuilt.They have about 40 to 50 percent of the failed tubes plugged. I was wondering how they repair the tubes. Obviously they must have to remove the sheets.They would rather throw something away than give it a good home, that said,I have worked out some dumpster deals in the past. Thanks,DEL