AC-13 Condensation of Vapors from a Gas Stream Outside High-Finned Tubes

J. W. Palen
2004; rev 10/2012

A growing interest in high-finned tube dehumidifiers has prompted HTRI to develop a new method for Xace. This new method designs a dehumidifier that condenses a small amount of water from a saturated or partially saturated air stream as the stream is cooled by flowing over a bundle of high-finned tubes. According to the open literature, a mass transfer, or Colburn-Hougen–type, method is most suitable. The new mass transfer method that we recommend uses HTRI’s basic heat transfer methods for ascertaining the liquid film and sensible gas heat transfer coefficients, and then combines these with mass transfer relationships using an assumption that the Lewis number is unity. Theoretically, this procedure could be extended to systems other than air-water by using the appropriate Lewis number value and vapor pressure relationships.