Study of Heat Transfer Rate in Electric Evaporators of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Using Electrothermal Modeling

Abstract

In modern domestic and foreign experience of gas power supply to houses and industrial facilities located remotely from the main power station, decentralized gas power supply systems fed with propane-butane mixtures of liquefied petroleum gases from tanks are increasingly used. When using liquefied petroleum gases as the main energy carrier in gas tank systems, they are evaporated artificially in evaporators with an intermediate solid-state or liquid heat transfer agent, under conditions of its natural convection. The main operational characteristic of industrial tube evaporators of propane-butane mixtures of liquefied petroleum gases used for gas power supply from tank installations of housing and communal, industrial and industrial facilities that are remote from the main power supply stations is evaporation capacity. The evaporation capacity of industrial tube evaporators of propane-butane mixtures with a solid-state intermediate heat transfer medium is determined by the heat input from the tubular electric heaters through the aluminum casting layer. Therefore, the study of heat transfer in the solid–state intermediate heat transfer medium-evaporation coil system is the most important prerequisite for the effective operation of industrial tube evaporators of propane-butane mixtures and requires detailed research. To solve the problem of determining the heat transfer resistance between the layers of aluminum casting in contact with the surface of the tubular electric heaters group and the outer evaporation coil surface studies were performed on an electrical model. The average value of the total error of the results of experimental studies on electrothermal modeling is 3.7 %, with a confidence probability of 95 %. Recommendations are given for reducing the thickness of the layers in clear from the lower coil of the evaporative tube coil to the lower generatrix of the solid-state aluminum mass and the upper coil of the evaporative tube coil to the upper generatrix of the solid-state aluminum mass.