Performance characteristics of plate heat exchangers with various geometric design parameters

Abstract

Plate heat exchangers have been widely used in many industrial applications because of their compactness and high efficiency. Even though plate heat exchangers have been investigated extensively, studies on the effects of geometric parameters other than the chevron angle are very limited in the open literature. In this study, the effects of the chevron angle, corrugation length, corrugation depth, and the number of plates on the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of plate heat exchangers were investigated experimentally. Based on the experimental results, empirical correlations were proposed. More than 95% of the predictions made based on the correlations had relative deviations of less than ±10% when compared with the measured data. © 2012 The Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers.