The utilization of natural gas in marginal reservoirs is a great challenge and opportunity in China.A small-scale LNG plant in skid-mount packages is an economical method instead of pipe lines or a conventional plant.But with small and compact structure

clogging problem always occurs in the heat exchanger(HE)

owning to its narrow channels for heat transfer.But heat pipe(HP)can overcome this drawback with its inherent high heat transfer coefficient and nearly isothermality of the wall.Thus the heat pipe heat exchanger(HPHE)can be an alternative choice to replace the traditional plate-fin heat exchanger in small-scale LNG plants.In order to study the heat transfer performance of a HPHE in its different temperature zones

a module of a six-row HPs with fins was manufactured and tested under specific temperature

in which each row of the HPs were connected together to flatten the temperature in the cross section.The cryogenic heat pipes(thermosyphons)were respectively charged with propane

ethane and methane under low temperature to ensure the safety.Nitrogen gas with adjustable temperature(-100-295 K)was applied as the heat sink

while electrical heating films wounded around the evaporators were used as heat source.Thus the whole module can reach a stable state in a specified temperature zone with the cooperation of the heat sink and heat source.Temperature distribution along each row of HPs was measured under stable states

while the temperature of nitrogen gas was recorded at the same time.The result shows that the whole effectiveness of the 414-row HPHE can reach to 99.68%

as the average effectiveness of each row in all the modules is about 43.28%

under a heat flux of 860 W·m-2

which equals the thermal load of a small-scale LNG process with a flow rate of 50000 m3·d-1.It is also identified that heat can be transferred very fast from the cold point to other area in the cross section of HPHE

with this characteristic the HPHE can prevent its channels from clogging when the working condition changes sharply.