Abstract: During the operation of synthetic gas heat exchanger 6E-3 in a natural gas reforming hydrogen production unit of a petrochemical company, the shell-side pressure drop far exceeded the design limit, accompanied by ?high-decibel abnormal whistling noise?. Through calculation and analysis, it was found that the high shell-side pressure drop and the noise were caused by the excessively high flow rate of gas phase medium in the shell side. Then, the shell-side structure of the heat exchanger was modified by transforming the single-pass shell structure into a double shunt structure to divert the gas phase medium in the shell side. After the structural modification, the actual shell-side flow rate decreased greatly, the pressure drop was only one eighth of the original pressure drop, and the abnormal whistling noise was eliminated, effectively solving the fault of the heat exchanger.

Key words: heat exchanger, pressure drop, acoustic resonance, structural modification