NEW METHOD FOR THE COST ASSESSMENT ANALYSIS OF SHELL-AND-TUBE HEAT EXCHANGERS

Abstract

A new simplified method for the cost assessment analysis of shell-and-tube heat exchangers (STHE) is presented in this paper. A comparison was carried out between the values obtained by the proposed method with the FOB average real cost for a total of 410 heat exchangers, with heat transfer surfaces ranging between 5 to 1150 m2. It was found that the proposed method correlates well with an average error of 10.1% , for 84.15% of the available data. The method presents a lower adjustment in the range , with an average error of 12.9%, for 82.97 % of the available data. The best adjustments are located in the range, with an average error of only 8.0%, for 80.95 % of the available data. In all cases, the agreement of the proposed method is good enough to be considered satisfactory for practical design.