Tempco Blog articles

Plates H and L, choosing corrugation in heat exchangers

01/02/2019

A new video is up on our YouTube Tempco channel (subtitles option available), dedicated to the kind of plates H and L in plate heat exchangers. H and L plates stands for high and low efficiency, referred to the thermal exchange rate achievable. Thermal transfer efficiency in a plate heat exchanger is indeed a result of the turbulence rate of fluids, depending upon the kind of Chevron angle in the plates corrugation design.

The Chevron angle in H plates is a dull angle, so that when overlapping the plates, rotated by 180° on each other, there will be many contact points leading to a very high thermal transfer rate. By the way, pressure drop will also increase.

That’s the reason why L plates are also available, having a more acute angle in the herringbone design of the corrugation. This goes with less contact points in the plates overlap, reduced pressure drop and also a lower efficiency in thermal exchange.

L plates are suitable for heat transfer applications using viscous fluids, not requiring very high thermal exchange rates.
H plates are suitable to obtain high thermal exchange efficiency with high pressure drop allowed, thus having pressure of a recirculation pump.

How to choose H or L plates in a heat exchanger? The selection is easily done by introducing the design values in a software to calculate a heat exchanger, values such as maximum pressure drop allowed, kind of fluids involved and their inlet/outlet temperatures. The software then determine the kind of plates, often suggesting the right mix between H and L plates in order to achieve the best compromise of heat transfer efficiency and pressure drop for the specific application.

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A new logo for Tempco… 4.0 efficiency

29/01/2019

Here we are introducing one of the anticipated and most immediate innovations that are driving Tempco into 2019, a new and redesigned image and logo for our company. The decision to come up with a new logo is due to the fact that personally, after so many years of activity accompanied by the old cherished one, I was really longing for something totally brand new for Tempco, representing a new course projecting Tempco into the web 4.0 and most of all heading to the lean efficiency paradigms of Industry 4.0.

The meaning of the new logo is strictly related to the concept of control of what is called secondary energy. Dropped out of the old binomial of heat and cold associated with red and blue colors, the new Tempco logo embraces a widened concept of energy, with a symbol that represents the control of a variable energy flow, being the color’s shade.

The idea explores a completely new way to face the concept of ‘Solid temperature’, remaining as our Tempco pay-off. The new logo showcases indeed a regular wave that can be linked to a heat or fluid flow, that becomes solid folding on itself. Making it in our vision a very effective, unique and original technical symbol.

And you, what do you think of the new Tempco logo?

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How does a plate heat exchanger work, Tempco VIDEO

18/01/2019

We wanted to make this 2019 a new year full of news, starting with a series of tutorial videos aimed to explain in a simple way the main working characteristics of some machinery employed in thermal energy management, such as heat exchangers and heat pumps.

I wanted to be featured in first person, and yes, the one you’ll see in these videos (in Italian language but with subtitles) it’s me, Valter Biolchi, owner and manager of Tempco and behind this Tempco Blog as well.

I wanted to dedicate the first video to the topic of plate heat exchangers, a kind of machinery that I’ve always considered as the most flexible and efficient in terms of heat transfer above all. Heat exchangers ensure indeed higher thermal transfer rates compared to shell and tube heat exchangers. This is due to the fact that fluids are moving inside the exchanger with a turbulent flow, even when the fluids have very low speeds.

The turbulent flow is obtained thanks to the design of the plates, which are then coupled each-other rotated by 180° in order to create tiny flowing channels with 2,5 – 3 mm width, depending on the kind of heat exchanger, forcing the fluids through the plates in a continuously interrupted and non-linear flow.

Another advantage offered by plate heat exchangers is the compact design and smaller size achievable with this kind of solutions, and most of all the possibility to obtain crossing temperatures between warm and cold fluids.

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Data center, how liquid cooling is gaining ground

11/01/2019

Let’ start the New year on the sign of continuity within innovation… We further go on indeed on the topic of cooling in data center, that we have already covered in our last year’s post. And we welcome you in the 2019 with a new Tempco logo, to be properly focused on in a future post of our blog.

Talking about cooling in data centers, we recently found an interesting article online that explains how the power increase in data center’s racks is becoming a problem for traditional air cooling systems, promoting the growth of liquid cooling, a topic we’ve already faced in the past months. A Gartner statement reported affirms that the air cooling is no more able to achieve the necessary heat dissipation in data centers where the electrical consumption is increasing by 16 up to 20 kilowatt for each rack. An increase in energy intensity that affects all data centers around the world, with liquid cooling solutions growing at a rate of 25%.

The higher efficiency ensured by liquid cooling solutions is naturally due to the fact that fluids can carry heat better than air, offering an efficiency in heat transfer 50 to 1.000 times higher. Liquid cooling offers a range of solutions, including water and special non-conductive fluids, and also the new groundbreaking innovations in nanofluids, special thermal fluids on which R&D around the world is very committed, able to increase conductivity and heat transfer capacity of common thermal fluids by the addition of metallic nanoparticles.

In liquid cooling for data centers, heat exchangers can be installed on the rear of the racks or by direct contact with hardware components, properly using non conductive fluids. A trailblazing and growing application is the direct immersion of racks in dielectric fluids, or even the construction of underwater data centers, such as the Natick project of Microsoft or the data center Green Mountain as well.

The trend raises new challenges for IT staff, traditionally scared by possible leaks of water and fluids in the presence of electrical devices. Elsewhere, the increase in computational power required from data centers is forcing to find new cooling solutions for servers and racks, employing water and liquids that are developed offering high security and protection for electrical components. A cultural change is thus necessary for IT administrators, with training programs aimed to prepare them to the technical transformation happening in the cooling systems for IT infrastructures.

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Happy Holidays warmly by Tempco!

21/12/2018

We would like to wish you all Happy Holidays, a Warm and Merry Christmas and a Joyful and Thrilling New 2019, from all the Tempco team!

Looking forward for all the new and challenging applications related to thermal energy management, and to the many news and innovations we’re working on… soon to be revelead! But in the meantime, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Everyone!

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Dimple jacket and free cooling in data center against global warming

17/12/2018

Cooling in data centers is often achieved by direct expansion chillers. This kind of systems, in addition to being highly energy-intensive, employ refrigerants that are pollutants, and thus more and more banned or limited by regulations. The increase in the computational power, due to the global adoption of artificial intelligence, big data analytics and cloud computing, machine learning and blockchain, has an effect increasing the impact of data centers upon the global warming.

If actually the increase of working temperatures of computers is reducing the need of mechanical cooling in data centers, regulations are pushing to a drastic reduction in the employ of refrigerants, responsible of greenhouse gas emissions.

Different HFC (hydro-fluorocarbon) refrigerants are employed in data centers, the most commonly being the R13a (in big plants) and the R410A (in small-medium size data centers). Their control imposed by regulations around the world is making their prices getting higher, pushing operators to find out new technologies and green cooling strategies for data centers.

Among green solutions for data centers, there is the employ of TCOIL dimple jacket exchangers for liquid cooling of the servers. Possibly also leveraging cold water available in the environment (as achieved in the Green Mountain installation in Norway). Getting rid of chillers, in addition to eliminating the use of HFC refrigerants, also would allow low energy consumption in data center operations.

Free cooling is another green cooling strategy for data centers, that stands out, as well as dimple jacket exchangers, for cooling efficiency and sustainability. The free cooling employs cold environmental air where it’s available, representing an efficient solution combined with cold water cooled systems. Moreover, the option of an adiabatic boost, which extends the dissipation efficiency of the free cooling systems, makes this green cooling solutions feasible in a wider range of geographical areas.

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Evolving electrical thermoregulation in pharma industry

30/11/2018

Leveraging a solid know-how built by Tempco in more than 15 years in thermoregulation applications in the pharma sector, we are introducing an improvement in the engineering of our TREG thermoregulating units.

The new electrical heating units dedicated to chemical, industrial and pharma fields meet the need of these sectors to regulate the temperatures in their processes, with increasing precision and programming functionalities.

In addition the pharma sector requires a constant monitoring of all process’ steps, thus including a continuous monitoring of temperatures and cycle times of all the heating/cooling/temperature maintaining cycles.

These requirements must be fulfilled providing compact machinery, ensuring easy and fast installation and commissioning. Tempco’s solutions portfolio offers a broad constructive range of power capacities, with different temperature control levels.

On the side of equipments we held our decisions, at the beginning not always accepted but nowadays representing a very appreciated and required standard:

Stainless steel heating armored resistances
Stainless steel internal pipings
Stainless steel plate heat exchangers
Flanged connections
Process and utilities connections on the upper side, making installation easier
Electrical panel in watertight box with thermoregulation unit interface and remote set point
ALL-IN execution complete with fairing, allowing a ‘clean’ installation without external components

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Norbornadiene, thermal fluid for solar energy storage

22/11/2018

Coming from Sweden is a new thermal fluid for solar energy storage, called Norbornadiene. The innovation arrives from a study of the Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, dedicated to a new solar thermal fuel mostly composed by carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen molecules.

The Norbornadiene solar thermal fuel is indeed able to capture solar radiation, and to storage solar energy at low cost for years, without discharging in opposition to what happens with traditional batteries. The stored energy can be released on demand in form of heat, by activating the fluid through a catalyst.

When hit by the sunlight, the molecules of Norbornadiene get excited so that some of the bonds between atoms are rearranged to a higher energy level structure (quadricyclane). The energized version of the molecule is stable, with strong chemical bonds, enabling the molecule to sit for nearly two decades without losing the stored energy.

Passing through a catalyst, the chemical bonds are rearranged releasing quite a lot of heat. By inserting a heat exchanger between the thermal fuel and water in the circuit, is it possible to transfer the thermal energy to heat the water at a temperature of approx. 65° C, to be employed for domestic heating or to obtain sanitary hot water.

The researchers are actually further developing and optimizing the process, aiming to lower the costs of both materials and the process to take the norbornadiene-based solar thermal storage technology to the market within the next 8-10 years.

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Thermal energy and industrial processes, a guide

16/11/2018

Tempco operates since many years in the field of thermal energy management in industrial processes, with a solid know-how and expertise and several applications in all kind of industrial sectors. Every day we are committed in solving heating, cooling, dissipating, thermoregulating and heat recovery matters.

We wanted to collect and share our know-how in a Manual, Energia termica and industrial processes (Italian language only), aiming to offer a first guide to engineers and designers helping them in the choice of the best suitable thermal machine for their specific application.

The Manual offers a wide description of all the main thermal machines, heat exchangers, chillers, cooling towers, thermoregulating units, dissipators and free coolers. Each solution is described in its characteristics and related advantages, completed with a series of case histories developed by Tempco along the way.

A section is in particular dedicated to the evaluation of thermal capacity of a machine, essential step in order to choose the machine itself and the kind and dimensions of heating/cooling components.

Flexibility and customization capacity complete the ability to suit the best thermal energy management solution in order to fit any customer’s production process need and requirements.

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Pipe expansion in exchangers connection pipes

08/11/2018

Following last week’s post about the function and importance of expansion tanks in thermal oil equipments, when working with high temperature fluids is also important to take account of thermal expansion coefficients of pipes.

Here is a technical table reporting the values of thermal expansion of pipes for different metals, to be used during the design and engineering of heat exchangers connections.

Employing thermal expansion joints can help compensate and absorb the dimensional variations on connection pipings, that can be important due to the high temperatures achieved by the diathermic oil in the plant.

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