Effect of Polymer Additives on Drag Reduction for a Plate Type Heat Exchanger in OTEC Applications

고분자 첨가제에 의한 OTEC용 판형 열교환기의 마찰저항감소 효과 연구

Experimental investigation has been carried out to determine drag reducing effects of polymer additives for a plate type heat exchanger(evaporator or condenser) in OTEC power plant applications, where the pressure drop in the heat exchangers takes up $70{\sim}80%$ of the total pumping power in the existing system. The rate of drag reduction was investigated with various polymer concentrations and mass flow rates. Experiments were undertaken for a test section in Alfa-Laval plate heat exchanger utilizing Poly Ethylene Oxide(Mw $5{\times}10^6$) as polymer additives. Concentrations of polymer additives were 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 200, 400 wppm at $25^{\circ}C$ and mass flow rates were 0.6kg/s, 0.7kg/s, 0.8kg/s and 0.9kg/s in normal operating ranges for a 15kW Alfa-Laval plate heat exchanger. The maximum effects of drag reductions were found at approximately 0.7kg/s of mass flow rate. The results show that there exists the optimum mass flow rate for the plate heat exchanger to obtain maximum drag reductions. Drag reduction of 20% means considerable savings in pumping power for a large size of OTEC plant.