Comparison of Plate Fin Compact Heat Exchanger Performance

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

10-31-2009

Publication Title

Proceedings of the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition

Publisher

ASME

Volume

10

First page number:

1325

Last page number:

1332

Abstract

Plate fin heat exchangers (PFHE) are characterized by very close temperature approaches and high thermal effectiveness, large heat transfer area per unit volume, low weight per unit transfer and possibility of heat exchange between many process streams. These advantages are only limited by operating fluid temperatures and pressures. The main target of this paper is to study the performance of plate fin compact heat exchangers and to provide full explanation of previous comparison methods of compact heat exchanger surfaces (plain, strip, louvered, wavy, pin, perforated and vortex) used in plate fin compact heat exchangers. We generalize these methods to identify the advantages and disadvantages of each type of geometry (more than sixty geometries studied) based on required size, entropy generation, pumping power, weight, and cost. The effect of using different surfaces on each side of the heat exchanger and design recommendations are also discussed.

Keywords

Heat exchangers; Mechanical efficiency

Disciplines

Energy Systems | Heat Transfer, Combustion | Mechanical Engineering

Language

English

Comments

Conference held: Boston, Massachusetts, USA, October 31–November 6, 2008

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the item. Publisher policy does not allow archiving the final published version. If a post-print (author's peer-reviewed manuscript) is allowed and available, or publisher policy changes, the item will be deposited.

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