QUENCH MEDIA & COOLING PROCESSES
Quench Cooling
Quench cooling entails intimate contact with the operating fluid. This is essential for liquid phase processes where substrates are above quenchant saturation temperature – whether water, aqueous emulsion, mineral oils, or synthetic heat transfer fluid. Carefully-designed pressure jets force momentary surface contact of droplets with the load to obviate vapour blanketing that would otherwise inhibit sensible heat transfer operation. Where water-marking might affect surface finish (as in aluminium extrusion), it may be prevented by quenching with demineralized water, or impingement with high velocity airstreams. Effective recovery treatment and recirculation are necessary for either, and become significant factors when assessing their operational economy. Dove Thermal has developed a free-standing polymer quench tank design incorporating refrigeration equipment for rapid and accurate tempering of the process.
Descretion in Method
The effective design of process cooling systems calls for proper study of the host application. If a product is to be cooled, then not only should its thermal and physical properties be known, but also the way it responds to change (for example, a non-Newtonian stream being tempered or a metal being quenched). While computer applications might appear to make plain sailing of describing system behaviour, the user must keep control of the basic model - and not place rote reliance on the hidden routines and elements nested inside bought-in software. There is much to be said for pencil-and-paper, and we retain the total capability to design & build machinery, plant and equipment for all types of cooling system from scratch.
Elegance in Design
The better a process is designed, the less need there will be for imposed controls. A well-bred system reacts organically to imposed loading, and might need no more than (say) a fan drive inverter or temperature switch to modulate its response. Even when the maths and physics behind an operation might call for some effort, efficiently designed process cooling systems should be elegant in the simplicity of their behaviour and construction. Our designs for air quench cooling tunnels to condition engineered products and flash cooling tunnels for fried products are worked-up from detailed in-house computer models written to resolve essential parametric values.
Typical Quench & Process Cooling Projects:
Dyeworks cooling & effluent processes for Eversmart, Johnson's Dyers and Stevensons Dyers
Rolls-Royce Aerospace fuel test rig thermal systems for Cullum Detuners
Extrusion line quench cooling systems for Alcan Aluminium Extrusions
Sintered component cooling tunnel for GKN Sintermetals
Polymer quench system for Aluminium Heat Treatment
Air quench cooling tunnels for Jaguar Land Rover