BCGmbH
Characteristics of MFTeX
Dr. Peter Hampel
The HVACR Industry market based on “Copper round tube / Aluminium lamella” is in transition to due to cost reasons. Both, replacement of copper against Aluminum and manual brazing against automated production processes are efficient cost savers and avoid out-sourcing, the emigration of working places and technology.
Intelligent solutions with low investments are required to keep production and technology in high labour countries and thereby in customer’s vicinity. Simple replacement as copper tube against Aluminium tube seems to be too simple and has not worked in the last decades as the cost difference in material may vanish.
Production processes replacing round tubes against the flat tube have been implemented in the automobile industry decades ago and Copper coil users, automobile drivers as well find it more and more attractive features of Aluminium flat tube over tube expansion.
BCGmbH features the MFTeX (modular flat tube heat exchanger) since it has many characteristics which go beyond simple cost saving by material replacement. The merger of mass production with individually designed small batches fits to the demand of HVACR Industry.
In the lecture we will explain the superiority of the flat tube over the round tube and will list some features which make it sensible to keep the technology initially designed only for automobile industry even when copper prices go down. Cost savings in labour by gradual automation and many at the first glance hidden features will protect your investment into Flat tube design even when low labour products comes to the market.
Ample variation in production of individually designed Flat tube heat exchangers
Dr. Peter Hampel
Ample variation in production of individually designed Flat tube heat exchangers.
The mass production of the MFTeX blank bodies (cores or semi finished HEX as some may say) leaves not much of a choice since this process has been deeply investigated over the last decades in the automobile industry and specialist will explain this in other lectures. The weakness of mass production despite the fact that it produces HEX for very decent process depends on poor flexibility. HVACR Industry demands medium sized, even small serials and batch sizes of a few pieces are out of the range of every CAB brazier. Too many parameters require tuning and selecting good quality and scraping minor is not a valid alternative.
In MFTeX production process mass production and individual mechanical confectioning both are separated production steps and will therefore change the supply chain. For many small equipment assemblers but also for the coil producer investment into machinery will be paramount. Existing ones have to be utilized and newly acquired ones must be flexible and relatively cheap. Further the gradual transition from machine supported production to full flanged automated production of “individually designed” small series, meaning POD production on demand must be possible.
All under the general aspect “double efficiency for half the price”. This lecture will list all production steps of “mechanical confectioning” and the option for cost effective production of “individually designed” MFTeX in small and medium sized series.
