Experimental study on shell-side pressure drop and offshore adaptability of LNG-FPSO spiral wound heat exchanger

Abstract

FLNG (Floating liquefied natural gas) has been proposed for the production and transportation of natural gas in the deep water area. The effects of offshore condition on the performance of the SWHE (spiral wound heat exchanger) applied in FLNG attract much attention. Three experimental devices of SWHEs are constructed to quantitatively evaluate how the shell-side pressure drops of FLNG SWHEs are affected by different sloshing angles (3–9°), periods (6–30 s) and amplitudes (120–255 mm). The experimental offshore conditions include inclining, yawing, pitching, heaving, surging and compound sloshing conditions. The results show that shell-side pressure fluctuation influenced by pitching motion is much more dramatic than that influenced by other sloshing conditions. The shell-side pressure fluctuation of falling film flow (within 80%) influenced by pitching motion is greater than that of vapor flow (within 21%). The increase of pitching periods and angles can increase the pressure fluctuation. A continuous dimensionless correlation for shell-side friction coefficient was obtained within a deviation of ±15% for the experimental data.