Last Updated on 26/03/2021
Well over 85% of all air cooled heat exchangers (ACHEs) in operation do not perform to their specified design values or end user requirements due to external fouling issues. As a result of this, during hot summer days, the product flow has to be reduced to achieve the required product temperature or pressure in the column. Production losses during these days can reach as much as levels between 20 to 40%.
External fouling is a very common problem on air cooler applications. Air side fouling is often caused by matters such as pollen of trees & grass, dust and or specific fouling related to the plant environment such as an open mine, catalyst losses, open fires, other plants in the vicinity (steel mills, Petro-chemical plants, cement factory, etc.).
Our CLEANFIN™ Filter system ensures that dirty particles remain outside of the finned tube bundle, thereby entirely eliminating the need to clean the finned tube bundles repeatedly. More notably, it is the fact that the CLEANFIN™ Filter system allows you to maintain a 100% clean bundle when you need it the most during the warm summer months as illustrated in graph below. Most cleaning activities of external finned tubes are carried out in the spring period just before the hot summer days. The problem, however, lies in the fact that the finned tube bundles get dirty again during the summer period, which in turn considerably limits cooling/condensing capacity of the ACC & AFC’s. We have extensively and very successfully tested our system on several types of air coolers (AFC’s) and air-cooled condensers (ACC’s).
