Control of fouling in a spirally-ribbed water chilled tube with electronic anti-fouling technology

The objective of the present study was to investigate the feasibility of using electronic anti-fouling (EAF) technology to control precipitation fouling in a spirally-ribbed tube commonly used in chillers. Fouling experiments were conducted with two new tubes: one with an EAF treatment and the other without it. Brush punching of a fouled tube with an enhanced spin-grit brush cleaned almost all of the scale above the fins for the case with the EAF treatment, thus recovering 90% of the initial overall heat transfer coefficient values. However, for the case without the EAF treatment, the spin-grit brush punching was not effective in removing scale. The present experiment indicated that the EAF technology could be used to control precipitation fouling in a spirally-ribbed tube. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.