Abstract
Scale is formed when hard water is heated or cooled in heat transfer equipments such as heat exchangers, condensers, evaporators, cooling towers, boilers, and pipe walls. When the scale deposits in a heat exchanger surface, it is conventionally called fouling. The objective of the present study is to analyze the process of the fouling formation in a heat exchanger according to different types of water using visualization techniques. In order to experimentally investigate the formation of the fouling, this study built a lab-scaled heat exchanging system. Using the visualization techniques of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-Ray diffraction method, the three dimensional configurations of the fouling formation could be successfully obtained. Based on the experimental results, it was found that the configurations of the fouling formation were different when using tap water compared to river water.
