A heat exchanger is a device built for efficient heat transfer from one fluid to another, both fluids are separated by a solid wall so that they never mix and are directly contacted thus avoiding contamination. They are widely used in industrial, marine, mining, automotive, chemical and process, Hot water Generation, solar energy, Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems. The exchange of heat (energy) from one unit to another is of essence in our today’s industry. In fact, no industrial processes to manufacture goods, heating and cooling homes and public places, energy generation and other daily activities could take place without this exchange of heat.
There are several sort of Heat Exchanger Designs, the shell and tube heat exchanger is usually the best for higher pressure applications and consists of a series of finned tubes, through which one of the fluids runs. The second fluid runs over the finned tubes to be heated or cooled. Temperature and pressure resistance is set by the choice of materials of its components. The main advantage stems on the easy maintenance thanks to the removable tube stack although surface exchange id smaller than others thus requiring extra length
Another type of heat exchanger is the plate heat exchanger. One is composed of multiple, thin, slightly-separated plates that have very large surface areas and fluid flow passages for heat transfer. This stacked-plate arrangement can be more effective, in a given space, than the shell and tube heat exchanger. Advances in gasket and brazing technology have made the plate type heat exchanger increasingly practical. In HVAC applications, large heat exchangers of this type are called
plate-and-frame; when used in open loops, these heat exchangers are normally of the gasketed type to allow periodic disassembly, cleaning, and inspection. There are many types of permanently-bonded plate heat exchangers such as dip-brazed and vacuum-brazed plate varieties, and they are often specified for closed-loop applications such as refrigeration. Plate heat exchangers also differ in the types of plates that are used, and the configurations of those plates. Some plates may be stamped with “chevron” or other patterns, where others may have machined fins and/or grooves