Tube Material for Cooling Water Service

Please quantify the quality of the cooling water: pH, TDS, TSS, etc.

I don't know the quality of the water. I'm looking for general references so I don't have to consult CR4 every time we need to work with cooling water. If I find anything on the quality I'll let everyone know though.

Cupronickel is a lot more tolerant adverse water conditions, such as salt water and slightly acidic water.

I'm not sure if you're talking about a primary circuit or a secondary circuit.

Oxygen-free copper does not like DI water. ure copper does not react well with acids or alkali; therefore Cupronickel is preferred. A high chromium stailess steel is even better.

References would be NAVSEA 250-1500, NSTR 92, NSTR 96.

Good luck in the contest

It also depends on what fluid is on the other side....

Actually speaaking Copper tube is good conductor of heat conduction. As any alloy is added like nickel, the heat conduction reduced to 70%.

As pure copper cannot be used as there will large amount of scale formation in the form of copper sulphate in the inner tube which reduces heat conduction.

As to sustain the cooling water copper nickel combination is used for hot and cold water application.

There is a manufacturer in Calcutta who manufacturers these tube both for Marine and Indian Railways application. You can go through the Industrial directory and get the address. On this you can use the finned tube to reduce the loss and increase the efficiency of the tube bundle.

Regards

Bala

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First off I don't know squat about this , BUT in automotive applications where forced induction is used (supercharger / turbo) the inter coolers are always made from aluminum. Take a look on the procharger website.

The reason they use aluminum as opposed to copper is weight and cost. By far the more efficient material is either copper or brass and all the old radiators or heat exchangers used to be made of it. Aluminum is not a good conductor of heat but it is much lighter and about half the cost, that is why it is used. Another mistaken idea is that aluminum heads and/or blocks are better than the old cast iron ones. Cast iron is much more durable and heat efficient as well as stronger. The reason that aluminum is used is weight and the fact that it is much easier to cast and machine, but as anyone that has had their car with aluminum heads that got hot knows or learns very quickly they are much more prone to warpage and cracking. Copper and cast iron are far superior to aluminum, but are also much heavier.

I'm not a car guy, so I won't touch on radiators, but aluminum ranks pretty high in the heat conductivity area. In fact, it is over twice that of brass and about 3-5 times more conductive that of iron/carbon steels. (You are right about copper being more conductive (about twice that of aluminum). In fact aluminum is a good enough conductor of heat that it happens to be the material of choice for heat sinks in electronics, such as the PC you're typing on!

I'm not a materials guy either but I think you have it right about aluminum being chose for "weight" reasons. If I remember right, aluminum has a high allowable strength to weight ratio. (so for the a given design stress, less weight of material is used, and hence a material of choice for the aviation industry!)

the gm LS3 aluminum block is much stronger than the typical cast iron sbc blocks by far. and the LS cast iron blocks are far superior and stronger than "the old cast iron ones".These are the standard blocks GM has been using for close to 10 years. you can buy the aluminum LS3 block from GM for 1500.00 bucks To use copper or brass the material used has to be a lot thicker. this is better for holding heat but not for getting rid of heat . electronics always use a thin aluminum heat sinc. why do you think a top fuel dragster that cost a half million bucks ,has 4000 hp and can go faster than 300 mph in the 1/4 mile uses aluminum heat exchangers. its because they take weight,strength and ability in to consideration.a few hundred bucks , if it is even that much, doesn't come into play. aluminum is the most logical material to use. go call Roush and Shelby and tell them they are going it wrong

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• In petroleum oil refining at distillation units, we used to use the copper grades of material ASME SB-111, like Admiralty & Aluminum Bronze (UNS No. C44300, C60800 & C61400) for tubes of water coolers and condensers of heat exchangers (water in tube side, i.e. inside tubes) where there is no sever corrosion due to the second fluid which is a hydrocarbon oil or its product located outside the tubes (shell side).

• If there is a sever corrosion due to high percentage of H₂S in the hydrocarbon product as located at reformer & isomerization units of oil refining or due to using of sea water in tube side, we have to use the copper alloy grades of material ASME SB-111 (which are more expensive) like 70-30 copper-nickel (UNS No. C71500).

• Please ask a specialist like a licensor company or chemical/corrosion engineer to select the proper tube material to avoid the expected problems in operation.

I didn't think to look here at first so I appreciate the post but it seems to be the same problem that I'm having with every other reference that I find. It tells me what to use or not to use in the service I need but does not give the benefits of one tube material over another.

The best reference I found was an old Metals Handbook that gave the corrosion rates of copper and cupronickel in seawater.

I'll post my data in a separate post for everyone to look at but I hate posting that first because then I get only one answer and become dependent on CR4 for other answers in the future.

copper tubes is very good, you don`t tell us about your project. If is water to water it is more cheap plate exchanger.

marius.

Here's the design data that I have. The reason I didn't post it before was because I'd prefer to find reference material, and I probably won't trust what someone puts on a web forum anyway. No offense to anyone but if something goes wrong I can't really tell my boss or a company investigating an incident that I designed the way I did because I read it on a forum.

Shell side is lube oil at 150-200F. Tube side is cooling water (50F I believe on the inlet).

We had a copper tube exchanger that was in service for 12 years. It was replaced in kind (for the most part) but with poor design.

From what I've read and from help from the tech services department, it seems that cupronickel is a better tube material. My boss wants to know the benefits of cupronickel over copper before providing funding.

I thought I would take this opportunity to gather some good references for any future problems like this.