Heat Transfer Analysis of Gasketed Plate Heat Exchanger

Compact heat exchangers are most widely used for heat transfer applications in industries. Plate heat exchanger is one such compact heat exchanger, provides more area for heat transfer between two fluids in comparison with shell and tube heat exchanger. The present work deals with experimental heat transfer data performed on plate type heat exchanger which is used in hydraulic cooling system in an industry. The heat exchanger used for carrying out this work consists of thin metal welded plates of stainless steel with 0.5mm thickness; distance between two plates is 5mm, chevron angle 60° and counter flow arrangement. The total heat transfer area is 161.62 m2 . This consists of total 249 numbers of plates and it is designed to withstand with 65°C temperature with a flow rate of 64751 kg/h and cold fluid enters with a flow rate of 82366 kg/h at 35°C and leaves at 44.29°C, pressure drop is neglected. The inlet and outlet temperatures of cold and hot fluids are been observed and with that conditions performance evaluation is done. Based on the experimental data, a correlation will estimate for Nusselt number as a function of Reynolds number, Prandtl number and chevron angle and the outputs obtained are convective heat transfer coefficient, overall heat transfer coefficient, and exchanger effectiveness. From the obtained results, graphs are drawn to assess the performance of the Gasketed Plate heat exchanger.