What is a plate and shell heat exchanger?

Plate and shell heat exchanger - what is a plate and shell heat exchanger

The plate and shell heat exchanger is a heat exchanger with a plate tube as the heat transfer element, also known as a sheet heat exchanger. It is mainly composed of two parts, the plate tube bundle and the shell (pictured). The contacts of cold-formed pairs of strips are tightly welded together to form a plate tube (pictured) containing multiple flat runners. Many plate tubes with different widths are arranged in a certain order. In order to maintain the spacing between the plate tubes, metal strips are inserted at both ends of the adjacent plate tubes and welded together with the plate tubes. The two ends of the plate tube form a tube sheet, so that many plate tubes are firmly connected together to form a plate tube bundle. The end face of the plate tube bundle presents a number of flat channel plate tube bundles assembled in the shell, and the longitudinal expansion difference is eliminated by sliding seal between it and the shell.

Plate and shell heat exchanger - application of plate and shell heat exchanger

Plate and shell heat exchangers are suitable for heat exchange processes such as liquid-liquid, vapor-liquid, gas-liquid, gas-gas, etc., and can also be used as condensers, evaporators, etc. The unique wide channel design is especially suitable for the heating and cooling process requirements of process media containing a large amount of solid particles and fiber suspensions. It is also used in industrial sectors such as chemical industry, papermaking, pharmaceutical and food. Typical products are mainly used in food, pharmaceutical and other processing industries that require good heat transfer efficiency and short residence time.

Plate and Shell Heat Exchanger—Advantages of Plate and Shell Heat Exchanger

The plate and shell heat exchanger is a structural form between the shell and tube heat exchanger and the plate heat exchanger. It takes into account the advantages of both: the plate is used as the heat transfer surface, and the heat transfer efficiency is good. The heat transfer coefficient is about twice that of the shell-and-tube heat exchanger; the structure is compact and the volume is small. ;Temperature resistance and compression resistance, the maximum working temperature can reach 800°C, and the maximum working pressure can reach 6.3 MPa; the fluid flows in the flat channel at high speed, and the plate surface is smooth, not easy to scale, the plate bundle can be disassembled, and it is easy to clean. However, the manufacturing process of this kind of heat exchanger is more complex than that of the shell-and-tube heat exchanger, and the amount of welding is large and the requirements are high, so its popularization and application are limited.