Plate heat exchangers

In transmural heat exchangers, a wall (tubular, plate, or some other non-circular geometry) separates the hot and cold fluids streams, and heat exchange between them takes place across this interface. Plate heat exchangers are made from stacks of plates onto which a pattern of corrugation has been pressed.

This stacked-plate arrangement can be more effective in a given space, than the shell and tube heat exchanger.

Plate heat exchangers are less widely used than tubular heat exchangers but offer many distinct advantages and unique application features including:
*Flexible thermal sizing (plates can simply be added or removed to meet varying batch processing heat-load demands)
*Easy cleaning for sustaining extreme hygienic conditions
*Close approach temperature pure counter-flow operation
*Enhance heat transfer performance

Plate heat exchangers are used in a number of applications involving boiling. They are used in both large and small scale refrigeration systems, with either or organic refrigerants. In refrigeration applications the exchanger can be in either the ‘flooded’ or ‘dry’ evaporator.

In the food industry, plate heat exchangers are used in concentrating products by evaporating off water. Liquid foods such as milk, fruit juices, beers, wines and liquid eggs are pasteurized using plate-type heat exchangers.
Plate heat exchangers