Devise of a W serpentine shape tube heat exchanger in a hard chromium electroplating process

In a hard chromium electroplating process, a heat exchanger is employed to remove the heat produced from the high current intensity in an electroplating bath.Normally, a conventional U shape heat exchanger is installed in the bath, but it provides low heat removal.Thus, this study designs a novel W serpentine shape heat exchanger with identical heat transfer area to the conventional one for increasing heat removal performance.The performance of the heat exchange is tested with various flow velocities in a cross-section in range of 1.6 to 2.4 m·s^(-1).Mathematical models of this process have been formulated in order to simulate and evaluate the heat exchanger performance.The results show that the developed models give a good prediction of the plating solution and cooling water temperature, and the novel heat exchanger provides better results at any flow velocity.In addition, the W serpentine shape heat exchanger has been implemented in a real hard chromium electroplating plant.Actual data collected have shown that the new design gives higher heat removal performance compared with the U shape heat exchanger with identical heat transfer area; it removes more heat out of the process than the conventional one of about 23%.