Tubular heat exchanger

Abstract

The present specification describes a tubular heat exchanger (1) comprising a tubular sleeve (2); a first plurality of tubes (3a) carrying a heat transfer fluid which are located inside the tubular sleeve (2); at least one diaphragm (4) located inside the tubular sleeve (2) which divides the interior of the sleeve (2) into at least two chambers, where said diaphragm comprises a central hole (4a) configured for allowing the passage of the product, and where said diaphragm (4) comprises a plurality of holes (4b) configured for allowing the passage of the first plurality of tubes (3a); and a piston (5) comprising a tubular shaft (5a) and at least two plates (6) perpendicular to the tubular shaft (5a); where said tubular shaft (5a) is configured for performing a longitudinal reciprocating movement through the central hole (4a) of said at least one diaphragm (4); improving the heat transfer of the exchanger object of the invention.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates to a tubular heat exchanger configured for transferring heat from a heat transfer fluid to a specific product, or vice versa; where said heat exchange includes heating and cooling processes as well as drying processes; and where the heat exchanger object of the invention is encompassed within the field of food preservation and preparation.[0002]The purpose of this heat exchanger is to perform tasks of heating, cooling or drying products that can be both foods, in a preferred embodiment, and any other type of products that must be heated or cooled, such as sludge in waste water treatment plants, for example. Said exchanger furthermore allows improving the energy efficiency of heat transfer with respect to the exchangers known until now, having a small and compact size, in addition to reducing the heat treatment time depending on the type of product to be treated.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]By way of introduction...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention is a heat exchanger with a unique design that improves energy efficiency and prevents dead areas. The design has holes in each plate that direct the product to be treated through a specific path, eliminating areas of low heat transfer. Additionally, the design reduces the size of the heat exchanger because large surfaces are not needed to achieve high heat transfer. The scraped surface of the exchanger allows for long continuous working times.

Problems solved by technology

Depending on the amount of product to be treated, the sizes of the sleeves vary greatly, even being able to take up very large volumes which make positioning them in closed spaces difficult, and it involves the reduction of space in factories.

However, even though this solution successfully improves the heat transfer with respect to the exchanger that has no compartments, the product does not flow through the entire volume of said compartments inside the chamber, there being small dead areas that, though being much smaller than in the exchanger that has no compartments, continue to cause the production of a treated product the thermal characteristics of which may not be the initially desired characteristics.

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