Fr: Dick Hawrelak

Re: Air Cooler Applications

This memo is intended to assist process engineers who are

considering the economics of air coolers for the first time.

(1) The two ways to get through this process, the easy way
and the hard way, are described below:

(a) The easy way is to Fax an air cooler spec sheet to

Hudson Products Corporation, Houston Texas and have them do
your work for you. If the application is relatively straight
forward (gas cooling) they'll get you a budget price, a
floor plan area (footprint) and a utility consumption figure
in a few days. If the application is difficult (20 component
partial condenser), it will take a bit longer.

Telecopier Number (713) 785-2307 - auto receive

Problems with telecopier - call (713) 972 -8150.
For design assistance call Hans Peter Boy at (713) 785-
4000.

(b) The hard way is the process engineer designs and

estimates the cost of the unit. This takes double your time
(water cooler and air cooler), it's an unfamiliar unit
operation with the usual design traps, and because of all
the uncertainties, you still end up going to a vendor to
confirm the design and to obtain a firm price.

If your manufacturing rep still wants your own design, I

recommend using the easier HTSF air cooler design /
optimization program, called DACE1, rather than the more
difficult HTRI program, called ACE. To learn about the
design traps and the uncertainties, read the section below
on Previous Air Cooler Learning Experience.

Previous Air Cooler Learning Experience:

(1) The following conclusions were made following numerous

attempts to design air coolers:

(a) There were only two applications where we could

justify the high capital cost of air coolers over
conventional river water coolers. At that time the cost
evaluation only considered direct capital and back-up
capital for the river water pump house and the water/sewer
distribution systems. There was no alternative, ecology
water treatment cost to swing the economics in favor of air
coolers.

(b) Small, congested plants do not have sufficient ISBL

space for the large footprint area.

(2) Two applications were found and Hudson Fin-Fan air

coolers were installed. One was at EO2 and the other was at
Styrene. Both of these applications were cooling gas from a
high temperature to a low temperature where we could get a
reasonable LMTD with an 80 to 112 °F air temperature rise.

(3) There were no condenser retrofit applications where the

economics favored air coolers. The primary reason for this
was the summer air temperature of 80 to 85°F gave a lower
LMTD than 72 to 75°F river water. To compensate for loss in
LMTD, process pressure would have to be increased. Under
increased pressures many tower applications had poorer
relative volatility between key components. This meant
either more trays or more reflux and most towers we looked
at could not stand either (flooding or structural problems).

For an insight to many of the process problems mentioned

above, I recommend reading a report on How to Design and
Optimize a Distillation Tower. This instruction is
recommended reading prior to design of any new tower
application considering water-cooled, refrigerated
condensers, air coolers or even vapor recompression.

(4) The second reason we found no retrofit applications for

air coolers in condenser service was a space limitation. Air
coolers do not change the requirement to drain condensate to
reflux drums, which provide adequate NPSH for pumps. In
many of our plants, the condenser decks are too small to
hold large air coolers and so we considered longer piping
runs to space where area was available. In many cases, the
piping was large and this hurt the economics.

(5) This area can use 80 °F as the air temperature inlet.

Some designers are inclined to use 90°F as the air inlet
temperature. This 10° difference hurts the economics even
more for all of the reasons given above. Do not specify the
air outlet temperature. The vendor, or HTSF, will determine
the air outlet to suit fan pressure drop capability.
(6) The question of freeze protection always comes up.
Depending on the size, freeze protection (recirculation
ductwork) can add from 10 to 30% to the cost of a comparable
Gulf Coast air cooler. If the exchanger is down during a
freezing rainstorm, it may take some doing to thaw the
extended surface, which has an affinity for freezing rain.

(7) Zero to 100 % auto-variable pitched fans are recommended

for summer to winter variations in cooling performance.

(8) Aluminum fins are not acceptable in an environment where

there is wet chlorine or HCl in the air. A prototype air
cooler was installed in Vinyl Chloride to test materials of
construction. We found you had to keep the aluminum fins
warm and dry to avoid severe external corrosion. Monel fins
were acceptable, but costly.

(9) Noise and vibration can be a real problem. A large air

cooler was installed on the pipe rack at EO2 at Fort Sask,
and it's the noisiest part of the plant. When you walk by
the air cooler your body picks up the vibration.

(10) Air coolers add an extra dimension to PSV design. If

you have a fire near the air cooler, it can attract hot air
and give you a substantial heat input compared to a
conventional condenser. Always slope the ground away from
the air cooler so no flammable material can collect
underneath it. Also, you may have to provide substantial
water coverage to protect the very vulnerable aluminum fins
from high temperature.

(11) If competitive quotes are desired, you will get quite a

wide variety of configurations, all optimized within the
vendor shop capability. One of the first things you look at
is the foot print area. Some air coolers are installed on
the pipe racks and some are even installed on top of towers
(TDI in Texas).

(12) Air coolers were designed for the Voranol reactors at

Guraja, Brazil, because of their auto-cooling capability
with loss of power. Piping vibration in this application was
also cause for concern.

(13) Beware of some vendors who have a bad track record with
their wrap around aluminum fin. If not bonded properly, the
fins lose their advantage. Hudson fins have good bonding. If
possible get a testimonial from someone who has this type of
fin.

(14) Air coolers should help disperse gas leaks by the heat
island effect. I'm pretty sure we could not take protection
credit for this as a mitigating device, however, heat rise
effects have saved the day in many cases. This might suggest
installing air coolers as a barrier between your company and
a nearby neighbor.

(15) I'm not sure what a good fouling factor for fins should
be? At the Fort, when the popular trees shed their cotton,
it generally finds its way to the air coolers. In Texas, the
fins get fouled with bugs. If dirt gets in between the fins,
they become useless, just like perimeter heaters in
buildings.

(16) At many locations, cooling towers were more economical

than air coolers. Avoid using cooling tower water coolers
when the process side contains high pressure flammables or
where the process side would experience extreme corrosion
from a water leak (Vinyl Plant). If flammables can vent in
the cooling tower special protection features are required.

(17) One plant recently considered converting river water

exchangers to cooling tower water exchangers. Total cost for
150,000 USGPM was $50MM. Management agreed this was not
economical. The company did not consider a low recycle
cooling tower application such as used by Polysar in their
plants across Vidal St. Low recycle cooling towers eliminate
the need for major blowdown treatment.

(18) There may be a good case for cascading river water with
recycle cooling water.

Special Notes for HTSF Users on Cost Estimation

The HTSF air cooler design / cost optimization program can

be accessed on the Vax by typing Do DACE1M at the $ sign.
I'd recommend reading the program Users Manual very closely
before making your first run. Id try and duplicate one of
the examples just to get a feel for the program. If you get
comparable answers, you have a good working data input file
to clone.
The current cost file in HTSF comes from Smith, dated 1958.
To get up-to-date costs, the user enters an escalation
factor to bring you from 1958 to present time.

ASPEN uses the Pikulik cost file for estimating the cost of
Air Coolers. When I tried Pikulik's method to predict the
cost of the EO2 air cooler, I came much closer. Hence, I
wrote a spreadsheet program for the Pikulik method, but
using some of the polynomial formulas from ASPEN. The result
is a program which can be used to generate more up-to-date
cost file for entry into HTSF. A copy of this file is
included in an example.

There is one inconsistency between Pikulik and HTSF. Pikulik

uses tube rows as a cost variable, whereas HTSF does not.
Hence, to cover all tube row combinations with one safe data
cost file, you need to play around with both programs till
you get good cost comparisons for all the cases HTSF
considers.

The spreadsheet program also contains a "Quickie" sizing

routine that can be used with the cost estimating routine.
If this first cost estimate doesn't scare you off you can
proceed to the next design level.