ME 421 Steam Generator and

Heat Exchanger Design

Lecture 9
Gasketted Plate HEXs
Spring 2018

Prof. Dr. İlker Tarı

[email protected]
210 2551
 Introduction
• Initially developed for the food industry: easy to clean.
• Now, alternative to shell-and-tube HEX for low- to
medium-pressure applications and liquid-liquid heat
transfer.
• Design is specialized and proprietary.
• Manufacturers have computerized design procedures for
their HEX.
• Typical gasketed-plate HEX consists of plates with
gaskets and the frame, which includes a fixed plate, a
compression (pressure) plate, an upper carrier bar, a
guidance bar, a support column, and tightening bolts and
nuts.
Typical Gasketed-Plate HEX
Flow Pattern: Single-Pass Counterflow
 Mechanical Features
Plate Pack and Frame
• Plates are pressed together – the holes at the corners form
continuous tunnels/manifolds, leading the fluid from the inlet
of the plate pack to the narrow channels between plates
• Plate pack tightened by mechanically/hydraulically
• Two fluids flow in alternating channels, mostly in counterflow
• Heat transfer occurs through the thin plate wall
• There can be several hundred plates in a frame, held together
by bolts that hold the stack in compression
• Carrier and guidance bars are bolted to the fixed frame and
they support the plates
• Plate pack corresponds to the tube bundle in a shell-and-tube
HEX, but the two sides of the plate have identical
hydrodynamic characteristics unlike two sides of a tube
Gasketed-Plate HEX Assembly and Gasket
 Mechanical Features
Plate Pack and Frame (continued)
• Plate: A sheet of metal precision-pressed into a corrugated
pattern
– Largest single plate: ~4.3 m high x 1.1 m wide
– Heat transfer area for a single plate: 0.01 – 3.60 m2
– To avoid poor distribution of fluid across the plate width, minimum
length/width ratio: ~1.8
– Plate thickness: 0.5 – 1.2 mm
– Plate spacing: 2.5 – 5.0 mm
– Hydraulic diameter: 4 – 10 mm
• Leakage prevented by gaskets
• Common plate materials are stainless steel, titanium
• Plate number and size determined by: flow rate, fluid
properties, pressure drop, and temperature requirements
 Mechanical Features
Plate Types
• Various corrugation types are available
• Chevron type is most common, but also washboard pattern
• Prediction methods rely on experimental data
• Washboard: promotes turbulence by continuously changing
flow direction and velocity
• Chevron: flow channel provides swirling motion to the fluids
– Chevron angle, b, 25o – 65o range, is reversed on adjacent plates so
that corrugations provide numerous contact points when plates are
pressed together
– Chevron angle determines pressure drop and heat transfer
characteristics of the plate
– Plates can be very thin, ~0.6 mm
Plate Types and Chevron Angle
Typical Chevron Plates
Chevron Plate
Operational Characteristics
Gasketed-plate HEX can
be opened for inspection,
cleaning, maintenance, or
rebuilding within the length
of the frame.
 Operational Characteristics
Main Advantages
• Gasket design minimizes internal leakage risk. External
leakage is easily detected.
• Flexible design through a variety of plate sizes and pass
arrangements
• HT area easily accessible → change configuration to suit
different process requirements by changing number of plates
• Efficient HT: High HT coefficients for both fluids due to
turbulence and small hydraulic diameter
• Compact (large HT area/volume ratio), low weight; ~1500 m2
surface area in one unit
• Heat losses are negligible, no insulation required
• If gaskets fail, intermixing of fluids cannot occur
• Low fouling due to high turbulence and low residence time
 Operational Characteristics
Main Advantages (continued)
• More than two fluids in one unit possible, by using
connecting plates
• Transition to turbulence occurs at low Re, 10 – 400
• Due to thin walls, wall resistance minimized
• About 82% of the theoretical LMTD is utilized
• Similar cost with tubular HEX, if tubes are made of costly
material like stainless steel
• Lower costs for handling, transportation, and foundations, as
well as cleaning.
 Operational Characteristics
Performance Limits
• Gaskets impose restrictions
– Operating temperatures (160oC – 250oC)
– Pressures (minimum 25 – 30 bar)
– Nature of fluids
• Friction factors are high but channel lengths are short and
flow velocities are low so pressure drops can be kept within
limits for single-phase flow applications
• Upper limit on the plate size due to available presses, thus
largest units ~1500 m2
• Maximum design pressure ~1 MPa
• Not suitable for air-to-air or gas-to-gas applications
• Not suitable for high viscosity fluids
• Velocities lower than 0.1 m/s not used
• Only specially-designed units for evaporation/condensation
 Applications
• Widely used in chemical, pharmaceutical, food, dairy
industries, hygiene products, biochemical processing; due to
ease of cleaning
• Also used as process heaters/coolers
• Mostly liquid-to-liquid turbulent flow
• Corrosion and fouling problems in large systems can be
transferred to plate HEX
 Applications
Corrosion and Fouling
• Highly preferred to resist corrosion, but expensive materials
• Corrosion allowance is much smaller than that for tubular units
• High turbulence may result in erosion problems
• Less fouling than tubular units
– High turbulence maintains solids in suspension
– Uniform velocity profiles and no low-velocity zones
– Plate surfaces are smooth
– Corrosion product deposits, to which fouling can adhere, are absent
– High heat transfer coefficients keep wall temperatures low, thus
crystallization is minimized
– Frequent cleaning can be easily scheduled
• Assuming a pressure drop of about 30 kPa per NTU, Table
10.4 lists recommended fouling factors
• In general, 5% excess NTU for low fouling duties, 10% for
moderate fouling, 15-20% for high fouling
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
• Design is specialized and proprietary.
• Manufacturers have computerized design procedures for
their HEX.
• Most correlations cannot be generalized.
• Design methods are approximate to suit preliminary sizing
of plate units for a given duty.
• No published information on the rigorous design of plate
heat exchangers.
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
Heat Transfer Area
• Corrugations increase surface area compared to flat area
developed length
• Surface enlargement factor, f =
projected length
• f = f(corrugation pitch, pc, plate pitch, p)
• f has a value of 1.15 – 1.25; 1.17 is a typical value.

• Also, f = actual effective area = A1

projected plate area A1p
A1p = L p × L w , L p » L v - Dp , L w » L h + Dp
Chevron Plate Geometry
port
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
Mean Flow Channel Gap
• Mean flow channel spacing (gap), b = p – t, is needed to
calculate mass velocity and Reynolds number; it is not
specified by the manufacturer.
• b is also the thickness of a fully compressed gasket because
plate corrugations are in metallic contact.
• p can be determined from compressed plate pack length
(between the head plates), Lc, and the number of plates, Nt;
p = Lc/Nt.
Channel Hydraulic Diameter
4 ´ channel flow area 4 A c
Dh = =
wetted perimeter Pw
4bLw 2b
Dh = » , b << L w
2(b + L w f) f
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
Heat Transfer Coefficient (for Chevron Plates)
• Relatively high heat transfer coefficients
• Heat transfer enhancement mechanisms include
– Swirl or vortex flow generation
– Surface area enlargement
– Distraction and reattachment
of boundary layers
– Small Dh channels
• Heat transfer enhancement strongly depends on chevron
angle b.
• The performance also depends on surface enlargement factor
f, corrugation profile, channel aspect ratio 2b/Pc, channel
spacing b, and variable viscosity effects.
• No truly generalized correlations.
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
Heat Transfer Coefficient (for Chevron Plates) (continued)
• Some selected chevron plate correlations for the friction factor
and Nusselt number are given in Table 10.5, dependent on b
(mostly) and Re (based on equivalent diameter De = 2b)
• Most correlations are presented for a fixed value of b in
symmetric (b = 30o/30o or b = 60o/60o) or mixed (b = 30o/60o)
plate arrangements.
• Large discrepancies exist among correlations (see Manglik)
• Other correlations for various values of b are given in equations
10.10 – 10.13 (Re based on De = 2b).
• Chevron plates produce up to 5 times higher Nu than flat plate
channels of roughly the same size (dependent on b and Re).
• However, again, depending on Re, 1.3 to 44 times higher
friction factors than those in equivalent flat plate channels are
evaluated.
TABLE 10.5 (CONTINUED)
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
Heat Transfer Coefficient (for Chevron Plates) (continued)
• A more generalized correlation by Kumar is
n 1/ 3 0.17
hDh æD G ö æ c pµ ö æ µ ö
Nu = = Ch çç h c ÷÷ ç ÷ çç ÷÷
ç k ÷
k è µ ø è ø è µw ø
where Dh is the hydraulic diameter. Ch and n depend on flow
characteristics and chevron angle, given in Table 11.6.
• Re is based on channel mass velocity, Gc and Dh
GcDh m!
Re = Gc =
µ Ncpb L w
where bLw is one channel flow area,
Ncp in the number of channels per pass
Nt - 1
Ncp =
2Np
where Nt is the number of plates and Np is the number
of passes.
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
Channel Pressure Drop
• The total pressure drop is composed of frictional channel
pressure drop Dpc and the port pressure drop Dpp.
-0.17
L eff Np Gc2 æ µb ö
Dpc = 4f çç ÷÷
Dh 2r è µ w ø
where Leff = Lv, and f = Kp/Rem, Kp and m given in Table 11.6
as a function of Re and b.
• In practice, for various plate-surface configurations, f and Re
must be provided by the manufacturer.
• In our analysis, we will use Kumar s Nu correlation and the
above correlation for friction factor, f = Kp/Rem.
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
Port Pressure Drop
• Dpp can be estimated as 1.4 the velocity head
Gp2
Dpp = 1.4Np
2r
where
!
m
G=
pDp2
4
where m ! is the total flow rate in the port opening and Dp is
the port diameter.
• The total pressure drop will be Dpt = Dpc + Dpp
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient
• For a clean surface
1 1 1 t
= + +
Uc hh hc k w
• For a fouled surface
1 1 1 t
= + + + R fh + R fc
Uf hh hc k w
where h and c are for hot and cold streams, respectively.
• Uc and Uf can be related through the cleanliness factor, CF
1
Uf = Uc (CF) =
1
+ R fh + R fc
Uc
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
Heat Transfer Surface Area
• Required heat duty for both streams is
Qr = (m
! c p ) (Tc 2 - Tc1 ) = (m
c
! cp ) (Th1 - Th2 )
h
• Actual heat duty for fouled conditions is
Qf = Uf A eFDTm
where Ae is the total developed area of all thermally effective
plates, Ne = Nt – 2, which accounts for the two plates next to
the head plates. Single plate heat transfer area is A1 = Ae/Ne.
• In multipass arrangements, the separating plate will be in
parallel flow, which will have a negligible effect on the MTD.
• If the entire pass is in parallel flow, a correction F must be
applied to DTm. Otherwise, DTm = DTlm,cf as before, where DT1
and DT2 are the terminal temperature differences at the inlet
and the outlet.
• Safety factor of the design is Cs = Qf / Qc.
Heat Transfer & Pressure Drop Calculations
Performance Analysis
• For a given gasketed plate HEX, rating (or performance)
analysis can be performed for a specific process using the
procedures described in the previous slides
• Due to small channels and turbulence, heat transfer
coefficients can even be as high as 30000 W/m2K.
 Thermal Performance in Terms of NTU
• Two types of plates are defined in terms of their thermal duty,
to assess the thermal performance of plates:
– Short duty (soft plates): Low pressure drop, low heat transfer
coefficients, high chevron angle, short and wide plates
– Long duty (hard plates): High pressure drop, high heat transfer
coefficients, low chevron angle, long and narrow plates
• To select what type of plate is most suitable for a given
application, NTU is defined
UA T - Tc1 UA T -T
NTUc = = c2 , NTUh = = c1 c 2
(m! c p )c DTm (m! c p )h DTm
• Manufacturers specify plates with low chevron angles as
high-q plates and plates with high values of chevron angle as
low-q plates. Low chevron angle ~25o-30o, while high
chevron angle ~60o-65o.
 Thermal Performance in Terms of NTU
• e-NTU method was described previously.
• Graphs and tables for heat exchanger effectiveness e, and
correction factor F, as functions of R = DTh/DTc and NTU are
given in literature.
• e and NTUmin for counterflow are

exp[(1 - Cmin / Cmax )NTUmin ] - 1

e=
exp[(1 - Cmin / Cmax )NTUmin ] - Cmin / Cmax
ln [(1 - Cmin / Cmax ) / (1 - e )]
NTUmin =
(1 - Cmin / Cmax )
which are useful when outlet temperatures are not known.
 Thermal Performance in Terms of NTU
• Exact matching of thermal duties while fully utilizing the
available pressure drop can be difficult.
• A solution is to install more than one kind of channel in the
same plate pack with different NTU values. Then, the types
could be mixed to produce any desired NTU value between
the highest and the lowest.
• Read the Chapter on Gasketed-Plate HEX from D.
Biniciogullari s M.S. Thesis, PDF document on web.