Different Types of Jacketed Tanks

January 15, 2019

Like a thermos, perhaps full of piping hot tea, jacketed tanks use an additional layer of encircling material to regulate fluid temperatures. Unlike a thermos, the second layer isn't made of fragile glass. No, this vessel type uses toughened metals and surface geometries to provide different industries with perfectly specced jacketed containers. With the primary fluid inside the central vessel, the outer jacket delivers a separate stream of warm or cool liquid.

Dynamic Temperature Regulators

Back with the thermos, glass insulants and an intervening vacuum create a perfect barrier, so temperature-leeching material conductance becomes impossible. That's a remarkable if simple technological innovation. Still, it's a static effect. There's even a jacketed tank model that uses the principle, although the glass tubing is replaced by high-quality fibreglass. For a truly dynamic temperature regulating effect, outstanding thermal performance is gained when differently equipped jacketed tanks are matched against specific industrial and commercial applications.

Reviewing the Different Jacketed Forms

There's dimpled jacketing. The rows and columns of surface indents are arrayed around curved plates, which are installed around a solid tank. Behind the dimples, a heat exchange mechanism starts. Cold water is directed in and around the equally spaced depressions. Alternatively, hot steam raises the temperature of the stored fluid medium.
Next in the jacketed vessel armoury, half-pipe jacketing forms as a series of concentric rings, one above the other, on a tank's exterior sheets. The design works best when high-temperature fluid mediums are passed through the second layer. Steam pushes continuously through half pipe jackets. Likewise, cold water can be channelled without causing the kind of bottlenecks that appear in dimpled models. Traditionally utilized in large-scale applications, the design provides uniform coverage, no matter the scale of the operation.
Why fabricate complex half-pipes and equispaced dimples when a vessel designer could just manufacture a dual-walled tank? Well, conventional dual-walled jackets are efficient. They can be zoned and baffled so that the construct delivers uniform thermal regulation, but such complex architectures come at a cost. They're heavier and more expensive than the two models mentioned above.

Used to keep liquid foods, chocolate, for example, warm and on the move, jacketed tanks are popular in food industry applications. They warm wax, keep oil and paint viscous, and operate across a broad range of temperatures. For dimpled models and their half pipe counterparts, the temperature governing medium faces challenges, including bottlenecks and performance-inhibiting turbulence. Conventional double-walled designs would seem to have the upper hand, but their inability to move fluids at speed complicate matters. They do gain an edge when they're fitted with special baffles, but such components cause weight gains, plus a matching increase in costs.

Contact Details

Fusion - Weld Engineering Pty Ltd
ABN 98 068 987619

1865 Frankston Flinders Road,
Hastings, VIC 3915

Ph: (03) 5909 8218

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