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Counterflow: The Same Area Does More When the Streams Run Opposite
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Emma

Creado por

Emma

27. septiembre 2026SE
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Counterflow: The Same Area Does More When the Streams Run Opposite

Every heat exchanger in this batch — the economiser, the condenser, the plate exchanger — is built to one rule: make the hot and cold streams run in opposite directions. It is the single cheapest improvement in heat transfer, because it costs no extra metal. Run the same way, two streams approach a common middle temperature and stop; the cold one can never leave hotter than the hot one does. Run opposite, the cold stream meets the hottest fluid just as it leaves, and can come out warmer than the hot stream exits. This rung builds a tube-in-tube exchanger from a copper tube inside a hose, logs four temperatures with an Arduino, and runs it both ways to measure the difference.
Intermedio
About 5 hours

Instrucciones

1

Parallel against counterflow, in numbers

Cargando el cuaderno de Jupyter…
2

Build a tube-in-tube exchanger

Take 2 m of 10 mm copper tube and slide it inside 2 m of clear vinyl tube with a bore comfortably larger — the annulus between them is the second channel. At each end fit a tee from the PVC fittings kit: the copper passes straight through the tee and is sealed where it exits with silicone; the tee's side branch is the jacket connection. You now have two independent channels: inside the copper, and between copper and vinyl. Coil the whole thing loosely and insulate it with glass wool, leaving the four connections free. Push a waterproof temperature probe into each of the four connections through a hole sealed with silicone.

Materiales para este paso:

Tubo de cobre de 10 mmTubo de cobre de 10 mm2 metros
Tubo de vinilo transparenteTubo de vinilo transparente2.5 metros
Surtido de accesorios para tubo de PVCSurtido de accesorios para tubo de PVC1 juego
Sellador de siliconaSellador de silicona1 pieza
Aislamiento de lana de vidrioAislamiento de lana de vidrio1 sqm
Surtido de abrazaderas de mangueraSurtido de abrazaderas de manguera1 juego
Temperature Sensor - Waterproof (DS18B20)Temperature Sensor - Waterproof (DS18B20)4 piezas

Herramientas necesarias:

CortatubosCortatubos
Taladro inalámbricoTaladro inalámbrico
Juego de brocasJuego de brocas
Guantes de trabajo de cueroGuantes de trabajo de cuero
3

The logger

Four DS18B20 probes on a single data wire, logging hot in, hot out, cold in and cold out every few seconds as comma-separated lines you can paste into the notebook or a spreadsheet.
hx_logger.inoarduino
/*
  hx_logger.ino -- log the four temperatures of a tube-in-tube heat exchanger.

  Four DS18B20 waterproof probes on ONE data wire: hot in, hot out, cold in,
  cold out. Libraries (Library Manager): "OneWire" and "DallasTemperature".
  Wiring: all probes' red -> 5V, black -> GND, yellow (data) -> D2.
          Pull-up between D2 and 5V of about 4.7 k: two 10 k resistors in
          parallel give 5 k, which works on short leads.
  First run prints each probe's address: label the probes in that order.
*/
#include <OneWire.h>
#include <DallasTemperature.h>

const int PIN_BUS = 2;
OneWire bus(PIN_BUS);
DallasTemperature sensors(&bus);
DeviceAddress addr[4];
const char* NAMES[4] = {"hot_in", "hot_out", "cold_in", "cold_out"};
int found = 0;

void printAddress(DeviceAddress a) {
  for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
    if (a[i] < 16) Serial.print('0');
    Serial.print(a[i], HEX);
  }
}

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  sensors.begin();
  found = sensors.getDeviceCount();
  if (found > 4) found = 4;
  for (int i = 0; i < found; i++) {
    sensors.getAddress(addr[i], i);
    sensors.setResolution(addr[i], 12);
    Serial.print(F("# probe ")); Serial.print(i); Serial.print(F(" = "));
    printAddress(addr[i]); Serial.print(F(" -> ")); Serial.println(NAMES[i]);
  }
  Serial.println(F("seconds,hot_in,hot_out,cold_in,cold_out"));
}

void loop() {
  sensors.requestTemperatures();          // ~750 ms at 12-bit resolution
  Serial.print(millis() / 1000);
  for (int i = 0; i < found; i++) {
    Serial.print(',');
    Serial.print(sensors.getTempC(addr[i]), 2);
  }
  Serial.println();
  delay(4000);
}

/*
  The heat each side carried, from the logged steady values:
     Q_hot  = m_hot  * 4186 * (hot_in  - hot_out)    watts, m in kg/s
     Q_cold = m_cold * 4186 * (cold_out - cold_in)
  They should agree within a few per cent. If Q_hot is much larger, heat is
  leaking out of the jacket to the room: insulate it.
*/

Materiales para este paso:

Arduino Uno R3Arduino Uno R31 pieza
Resistencia de 10 kilohmiosResistencia de 10 kilohmios2 piezas
Cables de puenteCables de puente1 juego

Herramientas necesarias:

Ordenador con el IDE de ArduinoOrdenador con el IDE de Arduino
4

Run it both ways

Feed the copper with hot water from a bucket on a shelf — about 60 °C from a kettle topped up with cold — and the jacket with cold tap water. Set both flows to the same rate by timing each outlet into a measuring jug (aim for about 1 litre per minute). **Parallel:** both streams enter at the same end. Let the logger settle for five minutes and note the four temperatures. **Counterflow:** swap the jacket's hoses so the cold enters at the far end. Keep both flows the same. Settle and note. Compare the cold outlet in the two runs. In counterflow it comes out noticeably warmer — often warmer than the hot outlet — with no change to the hardware except which way one hose points. Work out the heat each side carried; they should agree within a few per cent.

Materiales para este paso:

AguaAgua40 litros

Herramientas necesarias:

Hervidor eléctrico de vidrioHervidor eléctrico de vidrio
CuboCubo
Jarra medidoraJarra medidora
CronómetroCronómetro
Termómetro de cocinaTermómetro de cocina
5

Context

A practice rung: no patent anchors counterflow — it is physics that engineers learned and wrote into every exchanger. The effectiveness–NTU method used in the notebook was set out in the mid-twentieth century and is how exchangers are sized today. Where it shows up in this catalogue: the economiser meets the coolest gas with the coldest water; the Stirling engine's regenerator and a rocket's regenerative cooling both depend on it; the Linde air liquefier works only because its counterflow exchanger lets the cold returning gas pre-cool the incoming gas. **Honest limits.** Counterflow gains most when you want the streams to approach each other's temperatures; for a small temperature change on one side it matters less. And it cannot beat the laws: with equal flows even a perfect counterflow exchanger only approaches 100 % effectiveness as its area goes to infinity.

Materiales

11

Herramientas requeridas

10
Total estimado
Lo que compró quien lo hizo. Los materiales sin precio se consiguen donde tú los compres.
MX$669.80

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