Heat exchangers play a crucial role in maintaining the temperatures of a system and help the unit to run smoothly. The principle used is nothing but basic heat exchange with the involvement of convection or conduction. Basically there are four types of heat exchangers found in the market and a consumer must know about them before purchasing.
Plate heat exchanger
The plates are fixed side by side and they co-exist with the gaskets present in the machine. The flat plate heat exchanger will have four ports of opening and a gasket that allows flow of fluid in the set direction. The ports will allow continuous flow of fluid maintain heat stability within the system. The greatest advantages of this heat exchanger are very less loss of heat, product weight can be decreased, consumption of less space, no major maintenance costs and easy installation. These heat exchangers have optimum stability and they are sold at www.aicheatexchangers.com, which is a pretty good source for similar products.
Shell & Tube heat exchanger
It follows the basic design of heat exchangers consisting of a shell encapsulated by tubes. They are used in places where there is a need to stabilize higher temperatures that range to nearly 850-900 C. There are many types of exchanger based on the pattern of fluid flow, design and performance. The well known types are 1-2 pass, single pass, U-tube and 2-4 pass exchangers. The heavy duty exchanger is easy to operate and control; further, it can sustain great pressures as well. Of course, this means that the exchanger needs a large space for installation and the cost of maintenance also increases tremendously.
Fin Type heat exchanger
This is a modification of the tube design mentioned above. The heat exchange is regulated with the help of welded metal pieces attached to the tube surface. These metal pieces increase the surface area of the tube and are known as fins, hence the name. They are mainly of two types – transverse and longitudinal fin type heat exchangers.
These are particularly efficient for cooling or heating of huge amounts of gases. The design helps to maintain a balance despite the heavy pressure levied by the gases. IN addition, they are good to take care of fluids of low heat transfer coefficient. However, there are some considerable disadvantages to the exchangers as well. They cannot handle slurry fluids, accumulation of particles near the fins and they are very difficult to clean.
Tubular type heat exchanger
The system of the heat exchanger is very complicated and involves sophisticated designing. To explain it in common terms, it consists of two pipes where one pipe if fitted into another pipe and they are joined at particular points for flow. The inner pipe or tube is allowed to receive hot fluid, whereas the cold fluid is sent between the space of inner & outer pipes. They are very good at handling slurries but maintenance takes greater time.
As one can observe the heat exchangers have their differences, but they fit appropriately to different conditions and systems. From flat plate heat exchanger to Tubular exchanger, everyone is good at something. Therefore, the consumer must know about them or ask great details about them before looking to purchase any of the heat exchangers.