THERMAL AND HYDRAULIC PERFORMANCE OF PLATE HEAT EXCHANGERS AS CONDENSERS

Plate heat exchangers (PHEs) have been widely used as condensers in process industries during the past years. However, the knowledge about their performance is very limited due to the relatively short experience. In order to further expand this application, work must be carried out to improve the prediction of thermal and hydraulic performance for PHEs as condensers. Therefore, a summary of the current status is of importance, which can identify the future research directions in this field. This paper firstly introduces different types of PHEs and their industrial applications as condensers. The reasons for choosing PHEs as condensers are explained. Afterwards, reviews of the available correlations for predicting heat transfer and pressure drop of vapour condensation for PHEs are conducted. The influence factors (e.g., mass flow rate, pressure, steam quality) on the thermal and hydraulic performance are identified. For the thermal performance, a reasonably good correlation is available for the prediction of condensation heat transfer coefficient, although further verification work is necessary. For the hydraulic performance, there is a big deviation in predicting condensation pressure drop in different works, and intensive research is urgently expected.