ABSTRACT

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the heat transfer performance of a plate heat
exchanger (PHE). Plate heat exchangers are widely employed in various industries due to
their compact design and efficient heat transfer capabilities. The experiment focused on
evaluating the thermal efficiency and operational characteristics of a gasketed plate heat
exchanger model. The investigation involved measuring the heat transfer rate, pressure drop,
and overall heat transfer coefficient under different operating conditions. Experimental data
were collected for varying flow rates and temperature differentials to assess the heat
exchanger's performance across a range of scenarios. The results indicate that the plate heat
exchanger demonstrated superior heat transfer efficiency, with minimal pressure drop and
high overall heat transfer coefficients. Additionally, the study highlights the influence of flow
rates and temperature differentials on the heat exchanger's effectiveness, emphasizing the
importance of optimizing these parameters for efficient heat transfer. The findings provide
valuable insights into the operational behavior and thermal characteristics of plate heat
exchangers, contributing to the broader understanding of their applicability in diverse
industrial processes. This research serves as a foundation for enhancing the design and
operational efficiency of plate heat exchangers, ultimately contributing to improved energy
utilization and sustainability in industrial applications
INTRODUCTION
Heat exchangers are devices employed for the purpose of transferring energy between two
fluids of differing temperatures. Their function lies in enhancing energy efficiency, as they
enable the utilization of energy within the system to be redirected to other areas of the
process, rather than simply being expelled and wasted. The contemporary emphasis on
sustainability has significantly underscored the need for improved thermal efficiency in heat
exchangers, owing to the pressing demand to conserve energy and curtail overall
environmental impacts. In this context, plate heat exchangers assume a pivotal role.
A plate heat exchanger, a compact variant of the standard heat exchanger, operates by using a
sequence of slender plates to facilitate the transfer of heat between two fluids. Among plate
heat exchangers, there exist four primary types, namely gasketed, brazed, welded, and semi-
welded. The plate-and-frame or gasketed plate heat exchanger essentially comprises a stack
of slender rectangular plates, hermetically sealed along the edges by gaskets, and enclosed
within a frame (refer to Figure 1). While initially introduced in 1923 for milk pasteurization,
plate heat exchangers have now found widespread application across diverse industries,
including chemical, petroleum, HVAC, refrigeration, dairy, pharmaceutical, beverage, liquid
food, and healthcare sectors. This broad applicability is attributable to the distinctive
advantages offered by plate heat exchangers, including their adaptable thermal design
(allowing for simple addition or removal of plates to meet varying heat duty or processing
requirements), ease of cleaning for maintaining stringent hygiene standards, efficient
temperature control (essential in cryogenic applications), and superior heat transfer
performance.
Parameters of a chevron plate
The main dimensions of a chevron plate are shown in Figure 14. The corrugation angle, β,
usually varies between extremes of 25° and 65° and is largely responsible for the pressure
drop and heat transfer in the channels.

The corrugations must be taken into account in calculating the total heat transfer area of a
plate (effective heat transfer area):
A P=Φ .W P LP …. (1)

Where
A P= plate effective heat transfer area

Φ = plate area enlargement factor (range between 1.15 and 1.25)

W P = plate width

LP = plate length

The enlargement factor of the plate is the ratio between the plate effective heat transfer area,
A P and the designed area (product of length and widthW P LP), and lies between 1.15 and
1.25. The plate length LP and the plate width W P can be estimated by the orifices distances.
LV

L H, and the port diameter D P are given by Eq. (2) and Eq. (3).

LP ≈ LV - D P …. (2)

W P ≈ L H+ D P … (3)
For the effective heat transfer area, the hydraulic diameter of the channel is given by the
equivalent diameter, De, which is given by:
2b
DP = … (4)
Φ
Where b is the channel average thickness.
Heat transfer in the plates
The heat transfer area is expressed as the global design equation:
Q=UA ∆ T M …. (5)

Where
U = the overall heat transfer coefficient,
A = the total area of heat transfer and
ΔTM = the effective mean temperature difference, which is a function of the inlet and outlet
fluid temperatures, the specific heat, and the configuration of the exchanger.
The total area of heat transfer can be given by:
A=N P A P …. (6)

where
NP is the number of plates.
The end plates, which do not exchange heat, are not taken into account in determining the
area. The inner plates are usually called thermal plates in order to distinguish them from the
adiabatic end plates. The overall heat transfer coefficient can be determined by:
1
U=
1 tP 1 …. (7)
+ + + Rf ,cold + R fhot
hhot k P hcold

where
h hot = convective heat transfer coefficient of the hot fluid

h cold= convective heat transfer coefficient of the cold fluid

t P = plate thickness

k P= plate thermal conductivity

R fhot= fouling factor of the hot fluid

R f ,cold = fouling factor of the cold fluid

The convective heat transfer coefficient, h, depends on the fluid properties, fluid velocity, and
plate geometry.
Design methods
There are two main approaches used in the design of PHEs, namely the log-mean temperature
difference and the thermal effectiveness methods. For the first method, the rate of heat
transfer is given by:
Q=UA ( F ∆ T ℑ )…. (8)
where
∆ T ℑ = the log-mean temperature difference, given by Eq. (9) and F is the log-mean
temperature difference correction factor.
∆ T 1−∆ T 2
∆ T ℑ=
∆ T 1 …. (9)
¿( )
∆T2

Where

The correction factor is a function of the heat exchanger configuration and the dimensionless
parameters R and Pc . For purely countercurrent or concurrent (single-pass) arrangements, the
correction factor is equal to one, while for multi-pass arrangements, it is always less than one.
However, because the end channels of the PHE only exchange heat with one adjacent
channel, different to the inner channels that exchange heat with two adjacent channels, purely
countercurrent or concurrent flow is only achieved in two extreme situations. These are:
i. when the PHE has only one thermal plate, so that only two channels are formed by the
end plates and the thermal plate, with each stream flowing through one channel;
ii. when the number of thermal plates is sufficiently large that the edge effect can be
neglected.
The adimensional parameters R e Pc . are defined as:
T hot∈¿−T ( Ṁ C p )cold
R= hot out
¿= …… (10)
T cold out −T cold ∈¿ ¿ ( Ṁ C p )hot

T cold∈¿
Pc =T cold out − ¿
T ∆T ¿ …… (11)
hot∈¿−T cold ∈¿ = cold ¿
∆ T hot
The second method provides a definition of heat exchanger effectiveness in terms of the ratio
between the actual heat transfer and the maximum possible heat transfer, as shown in Eq.
(12):
Q
E= ….. (12)
Qmax

The actual heat transfer can be achieved by an energy balance:

Q=( Ṁ C p )hot (T hot∈¿−T hot out ¿ ….. (13)

Q=( Ṁ C p )cold ¿…. (14)

Thermodynamically, Qmax represents the heat transfer that would be obtained in a pure
countercurrent heat exchanger with infinite area. This can be expressed by:
Qmax =( Ṁ C p ) min ∆ T max….. (15)

Using Eqs. (13), (14) and (15), the PHE effectiveness can be calculated as the ratio of
temperatures:

….. (16)
The effectiveness depends on the PHE configuration, the heat capacity rate ratio (R), and the
number of transfer units (NTU). The NTU is a dimensionless parameter that can be
considered as a factor for the size of the heat exchanger, defined as:
UA
NTU = …… (17)
( Ṁ C p )min
Pressure drop in a plate heat exchanger
The pressure drop is an important parameter that needs to be considered in the design and
optimization of a plate heat exchanger. In any process, it should be kept as close as possible
to the design value, with a tolerance range established according to the available pumping
power. In a PHE, the pressure drop is the sum of three contributions:
1. Pressure drop across the channels of the corrugated plates.
2. Pressure drop due to the elevation change (due to gravity).
3. Pressure drop associated with the distribution ducts.
The pressure drop in the manifolds and ports should be kept as low as possible, because it is a
waste of energy, has no influence on the heat transfer process, and can decrease the
uniformity of the flow distribution in the channels. It is recommended to keep this loss lower
than 10% of the available pressure drop, although in some cases it can exceed 30%.
2 2
2 f L v P Gc GP
∆ P= +1.4 + ρg L v….. (18)
ρ De 2ρ

f = the Fanning factor, given by Eq. (20),

P = the number of passes
G P= the fluid mass velocity in the port, given by the ratio of the mass flow, Ṁ ,

A= the flow cross-sectional area, π D P2 / 4.

4 ˙M
G P= 2 …..(19)
π DP

Kp
f= …… (20)
ℜm
The values for K p and m are presented in table 1 as function of the Reynolds number for
some β values.
Table 1: Constants for the heat transfer and pressure drop calculation in a PHE with chevron plates
Experimental heat transfer and friction correlations for the chevron plate PHE
Due to the wide range of plate designs, there are various parameters and correlations
available for calculations of heat transfer and pressure drop. Despite extensive research, there
is still no generalized model. There are only certain specific correlations for features such as
flow patterns, parameters of the plates, and fluid viscosity, with each correlation being
limited to its application range.
1
n 3 μ 0.17
Nu=C h ( ℜ ) ( Pr ) ( ) ….. (21)
μw

Where
μw = the viscosity evaluated at the wall temperature and the dimensionless parameters
Nusselt number (Nu),
Reynolds number (Re)
Prandtl number (Pr) can be defined as:
h De G D C μ
Nu= , ℜ= c e , Pr= p ……(22)
K K K
In Reynolds number equation, Gc is the mass flow per channel and may be defined as the
ratio between the mass velocity per channel m˙ and the cross sectional area of the flow
channel (bW P):
ṁ
Gc =
bW P

The constants C hand n, which depend on the flow characteristics and the chevron angle, are
given in Table 1.