Efficient and Cost-Effective Solutions for Jacket Tank Designs

Jacket Tank Design for Food and Beverage Industries

Jacketed tanks keep materials warm or cool by circulating heating and cooling fluids around the tank. They are used for various applications, including chocolate, liquid food blending and aging, ingredient mixing, and batch sterilization.

Conventional jackets come in a wide range of sizes and pressure ratings. They can be fitted with baffles and zones to improve thermal control. However, these components increase weight and cost.

Dual-walled jackets

Conventional jackets can be zoned and baffled to deliver uniform temperature regulation, but these extra components add weight and increase costs. Also, as the surface fabric clings to sweat vapor, it slows its movement to the outside and causes a clammy feeling in your skin.

A dimple jacket design, on the other hand, uses a large area of equal-spaced depressions to create a heat exchange mechanism. Cold water or hot steam passes in and around the depressions to keep tank contents cool or warm, respectively. This can save a process step, reducing production cost.

Most of the jackets in this guide are filled with down, which is warmer than synthetic insulation. However, down loses its warmth when wet. Fortunately, many companies make hybrid designs that combine down with synthetic fill for optimal warmth and durability. These include Patagonia’s Storm10 and Rab’s Torrentshell.

Internal coils

Many food and beverage industries rely on jacketed tanks to heat or cool materials. These tanks can be used for milk and fruit juice heating or cooling, ingredient blending, ice cream production, and more. These tanks are usually fitted with internals, which can improve the heat transfer efficiency. They can also reduce the amount of energy needed to operate a tank.

Depending on the design, internals may include baffles that alter flow patterns and increase turbulence. They can also be equipped with agitating nozzles, which can help with heat transfer in the liquid inside. In addition, a variety of internals are available for different temperature ranges.

These types of jackets can be either immersed in the liquid or fastened to the outside of a tank, called limpet coils. In the latter case, throttling the utility makeup flow instead of the jacket or coil flow can prevent fouling and maintain a constant fluid velocity across the heat exchange surface.

Double-wall jackets

A double-wall tank is a safer option for storing corrosive or polluting chemicals such as chemical fertilizers, fuels, nitric acid, ferric acid, and hydrochloric acid. It’s also an excellent choice for a storage tank that will be subject to continuous operation or transport. The second skin prevents leaks and retains any liquids that might escape from the first jacket in the event of an accident.

The outer jacket is made from dimple plate and the inner space is filled with a special heat transfer fluid, Bucomastic, to improve its thermal performance. This system is particularly suitable for retrofitting existing tanks.

This jacket is a top pick for warmth, comfort and weather protection. Its waterproof construction keeps you dry and the insulated fill helps keep your body warm all day. It features the latest iteration of Columbia’s Omni-Heat Infinity gold dot technology that uses a reflective surface to retain your body’s heat and eliminate cold spots. Its double-layered construction also blocks wind to keep you warmer.

Conventional jackets

Conventional jackets provide a full perimeter of heating or cooling around a vessel. They are a good choice for smaller, lower pressuretemperature applications. COMPRESS makes it fast and easy to design conventional jackets using the rules of Division 2. The higher allowable stresses in this section allow for thinner inner shell walls, which improves heat transfer.

Plate Coil Jackets

Plate coil reactor jackets are fabricated from whole pipes, which are strapped to the vessel. This type of jacket offers superior strength, up to 750 psi. They can be used for liquid heat transfer and high-temperature industrial processing. Plate coil jackets are a bit more expensive than other jacket types, but the increased strength can save money in the long run on vessel replacement costs. They also require good bonding to prevent insulating gaps between the plate coil and the vessel. A major drawback of plate coil jackets is their susceptibility to fatigue failure due to rapid thermal cycling.