Water runs through the tubes and refrigerant fills the shell, or the reverse, inside a long cylindrical vessel that looks like a barrel. Chiller techs talk about the evaporator barrel and the condenser barrel, pulling heads to brush tubes, and the danger of freezing the barrel when flow is lost while refrigerant temperature is low. A frozen barrel can split tubes and flood the refrigerant circuit with water.
Lost chilled water flow and the low temp cutout was set too low, we froze the barrel and split six tubes.
Also heard as
- shell
Related terms
Chiller
A refrigeration machine that cools water or glycol, which is then pumped to coils to cool a building or process.
Approach
The temperature gap between a fluid leaving a heat exchanger and the fluid or condition it is being brought toward.
Cooling tower
Equipment that cools condenser water by evaporating a small part of it into an airstream.