Beyond the Basics: Thermodynamic Availability in Xchanger Suite^® 

Energy efficiency has always been an important consideration for process heat exchanger design. Current design approaches implement steady-state conservation laws only for mass and energy (the first law of thermodynamics) and are limited because the efficiency value always approaches unity.  This webinar explores a new, more discriminating efficiency analysis in Xchanger Suite^® that is based on the second law of thermodynamics. By calculating the net change in thermodynamic availability of the streams, we can evaluate the irreversible energy loss—an important metric in trade-off studies. This irreversibility is dependent on the dead-state temperature and the net change in entropy of the streams. After an overview of the first and second laws, this webinar reviews two case studies: a shell-and-tube heat exchanger and an air-cooled heat exchanger. We then review the overall efficiency trends noted when evaluating heat exchanger designs using the second law of thermodynamics.