Study on the Methods of Predicting the Fouling Characteristics of Plate Heat Exchanger Based on Water Quality Parameters

Abstract

Fouling characteristic of plate heat exchanger was studied through the experimental system, with the Songhua River water as working fluid. Several water quality parameters: pH value, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, hardness, alkalinity, chloride ion, iron ion, chemical oxygen demand, total bacterial count, which had great influence on the formation of fouling, as well as running condition, fouling resistance and other parameters were measured through the experimental system built. A group of fouling data of the typical water quality was obtained. Two prediction models of fouling characteristics of the plate heat exchanger were built based on partial least squares algorithm (PLS) and support vector regression machine (SVR) with water quality parameters as independent variables and fouling resistance as dependent variable, and the impact of water quality parameter on predicting accuracy was analyzed. Research results showed that: the prediction accuracy of two methods could be controlled within 12.5% and meet the requirements of the project. Through the comparison of the prediction results, it was proved that the SVR method was better than the method of PLS. The impact of the water quality parameters on prediction model was discussed by the means of deleting the water quality parameters one by one.