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Born Canada Assesses Heat Exchanger Design Prior to Designing Prototype

Background

Established in Calgary, Alberta, in 1988 Born Canada (www.borncanada.com) supplies heaters to oil refiners and petrochemical companies across North America and throughout the world. They specialize in the design and supply of direct fired process, heaters, furnaces, and specialty fired heating applications. They also lead the industry in designing safety controls and burner management systems (BMS).

Challenge

A significant challenge arose when a new heat exchanger design, consisting of a complex ducting system, was requested by a Born Canada customer. The performance of the heat exchanger could only be guaranteed if the flow through the input ducts was very stable and uniform.

Solution

To avoid post-production issues and be in a position to guarantee the performance of the heat exchanger, Born Canada commissioned SimuTech Group’s Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) team to evaluate the original duct design before prototyping or manufacturing.

Evaluation of the initial CFD results revealed several potential flow problems in the original design. A modified design was proposed that addressed the recirculation zones identified in the original design. The final configuration, based on the modifications suggested by the CFD analysis, has since been manufactured and operates as expected with no operational or performance issues.

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