Marine steam condenser design using numerical optimization

Abstract

Two separate computer codes were coup led with a constrained function minimization code to produce automated marine condenser design and optimization programs of vastly different complexity. The first program, OPCODE1, was developed from the Heat Exchange Institute's Standards for Steam Surface Condensers (HEI). The second program, OPCODE2, was developed from the sophisticated ORCON1, a computer code produced by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. CONMIN, the optimization program, was developed at the Ames Research Center. OPCODE1 was well verified using main condenser input data of an aircraft carrier and a destroyer escort. Verification of OPCODE2, using main condenser data of an aircraft carrier, was less satisfactory due to the conservative nature of flooding effects on the outside film heat transfer coefficient used in ORCON1. OPCODE1 is an excellent design tool for the conceptual design of a marine condenser. Optimized test cases run with OPCODE1 show that a condenser designed by the HEI method is nearly optimum with respect to volume. Test cases with OPCODE2 show that enhancing the heat transfer on the shell-side by 80 percent yields a condenser with ten percent less volume than the unenhanced case.