Heat Exchangers Using New Technology Will Be Produced in the Urals

10:39, December 27, 2021

Finished products will be cheaper and have better characteristics than their foreign analogues

The Ural Federal University will begin producing heat exchangers and other products using new technology that can replace foreign analogs. Employees of the UrFU Experimental Production Plant (EPP) and the Innovation and Implementation Center "IIC" at UrFU have developed two technologies - finned tube technology and plate heat exchanger technology. Both allow increasing the heat exchange, reducing metal intensity and reducing the cost of the finished product with improved characteristics. EPP also equipped a workshop and purchased a robotic welding complex. In the near future they plan to develop serial production, the first proposals for orders have already been received from Moscow, Volgograd and other cities. The launch of the equipment took place today.

"By our request, Kawasaki-Ural Industrial Robotics Center and Robovizar company created a robotic technological complex equipped with state-of-the-art high-tech equipment. The complex is designed for automatic laser welding, surfacing and local heat treatment of various products made of metals and their alloys. We plan to be one of the first to develop the unparalleled technology of tube finning. The technology is similar to that used in Italy and China, but they are still different," says Aleksandr Volkov, Project Manager of the Ural Federal University EPP.

With the help of the robotic complex, EPP employees will be able to work with complex large structures. In addition, the robot can move up to 10 meters without losing positioning accuracy (error less than 0.1 mm). There are no such complexes in the region, in Russia there are only a few. For example, a similar one is used in the production of cars by a German company.

"Due to the use of a powerful energy source - 6 kW and high welding speeds, a high-quality weld is obtained. The tube does not have time to heat up and deform, which cannot be achieved by other welding methods. The technology is unique in this application with penetrating welds and this automated welding technique, which is probably the first time we have done it in Russia. And at the first test order that we made in the laboratory, our products came out 1.5 times cheaper than foreign analogues, but with better wedding quality and higher heat transfer efficiency, by 15%," explains Vladimir Podgorbunskikh, chief designer of the project, head of Ural Federal University EPP Bureau.

The first batch of tubes passed the production test. This order was made in three months: 9.2 thousand ribs were welded on 20 tubes (460 for each). With the help of the robot the speed of work will increase by 3-5 times, and the productivity will grow by 30% compared to contact seam welding.

It should be noted that the project was implemented in half a year. Kawasaki Heavy industries and UrFU agreed to launch the project at the Innoprom industrial exhibition this summer. The company delivered the equipment on December 13, the complex was launched on December 24.

Reference

Ribbed tubes are used in chemical, petrochemical and refining industry (condensers, gas heaters, gas coolers), in machine-building (compressor and refrigerating units, oil coolers), in nuclear industry (for the production of coolers, dryers and steam heaters), in air conditioning and heating systems.

Heat exchangers are installed on the exhaust gas path (from the furnace to the exhaust stack) for reuse of heat (utilization) of exhaust gases in production. The air, passing along the walls of the recuperator heated by smoke, is fed back into the furnace. Thus heating the room. The efficiency of heat energy return is 35-70% of the energy of the coolant.

The robotized laser complex of the Ural Federal University EPP allows not only to automatically produce goods, but also to create designs, develop technology in automated design systems, and automatically generate control programs. This creates a digital twin of the production system, which is fully in line with the trend towards digitalization of production and entering Industry 4.0. Employees of the Ural Federal University EPP have been trained in managing this complex system, mastered design skills, process simulation, and development methods for automated laser robotic technologies at the Kawasaki-Ural Industrial Robotics Center Training and Engineering Center at Ural Federal University.

Ural Federal University Experimental and Production Complex was founded in 1956 and is a structural subdivision of the university. The plant provides more than 30 thousand residents of Ekaterinburg city with electricity and heat and fulfills the orders of industrial companies. The EPP includes a boiler and turbine shop, electrical shop, experimental production (one of the most equipped manufacturing facilities in the region with a full cycle of metal processing). The number of employees of the EPP of UrFU is more than 200 people.