Repairing a frozen water cooled condenser.

[Magoo]

Has anyone had the experience of having to repair/ re-tube a frozen water cooled condenser. And how did you repair.
cheers magoo

[sedgy]

hi magoo,
in the uk they normally have a heater in the cooling tower,stat on 3 c
if its a dry cooler, the con , d water pump could be left running, ?
now the problem at hand , if its tubes you can plug off the faulty ones with tapered brass plugs< both ends< you can normally plug up to 10% of the tubes cos when a chiller is commisioned the flow rate is specified plus 10%
hope this helps =sedgy

[cool_tech]

depends on manufacturer you maybe able to get a new tube in tube condenser, there are places in Aus that make new condensers for all applications. you can try and make one yourself.

[Grizzly]

Hi Magoo.
A happy New Year to you.

If you are considering plugging the tubes, you may like to follow my attached link.
Which I discovered recently and saved as I had not come across this new design before.
Well worth a look!
Grizzly.

http://www.appliedcool.com/products/other_products/tube_plugs.htm

[mbc]

hi grizzly
it is good site
I have experience in condenser and evaporator
total pipe your blocking should not be more than %5 in condenser but in evaporator if you have more you need to adjust your need to adjust your expansion valve
to plug tube with dri-seal inside pipe should be clean and soft
dri -seal material = bronze is better
size of that should not be over size because when your hammering it might damage and break your condenser plate (more common when unexperience man doing job)

[stufus]

I'm with Grizzly
I have been using jiffy-plugs for a few years now and have yet to have a repair fail.
Much better than brass plugging and pretty fool proof.
Cheers
Stu

[Magoo]

Hi Grizzly.
the jiffy equipment is good stuff, Elliot Scott is another.
My frozen condenser was from several years ago, I was thrown in the deep end and had to sort out as I commissioned the plant.
OK the plant was designed as a summer only operation system, everything drained and winterized with a interior heating system
Summer DB + 40 'C., winter -35 'C. Location lower central siberia. Draining and winterizing did not happen.
Situation: busted probably 20% of tubes in condenser, impossible to get out as swollen, system full of water.
Famous russian saying "what to do and who to blame ".
Ended up, with little resources and no skilled people. Cutting off the end of 12 inch condenser with a hack saw, took a day and a packet of blades. Cleared all the tubes, vee,d out the cut and reweld with stay tubes in place, and hand rolled new set of tubes. That was the easy bit, cleaning up system was the mission that I don't won't to repeat again in this life.
magoo

[Grizzly]

Are you saying you actually removed the tube bundle?
Wow!
I had a free cooling coil on a air to water condenser which had frozen up.
My supervisor and I agreed with the customer that we would try and repair it by crimping and brazing the split tube ends.
If I remember correctly it was something in excess of 40 individual splits repaired in the end.
But that is nothing compared to your marathon.
Grizzly

[Magoo]

Hi Grizzly.
I had shipped to site a full set of low fin condenser tubes plus extras and all the repair tools, thinking that the failures would be in the low fin areas as being the weakest point. Not the case. Tried collapsing one end and punching them out. WRONG, they had failed just behind the tube sheets as being softer than the low finning areas, obviously the low fin process had hardened the tubes to some extent. Too late to ship in a total replacement condenser, which in hindsite would have been alot easier.
So the only option left was to cut one end, disc grinder not available, so out comes the russian hack saw and a packet of blades. A good test as well for my arc welding skills putting all back together.