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Advantages And Disadvantages Of Plate Fin Heat Exchanger

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b) Counter Flow

In a counter flow heat exchanger the two fluids flow parallel to each other but in opposite directions. The counter-flow heat exchanger provides the most thermally effective arrangement for recovery of heat or cold from process streams. A counter flow arrangement is thermodynamically superior to any other flow arrangement. It is the most efficient flow arrangement, producing the highest temperature change in each fluid compared to any other two-fluid arrangement for a given overall thermal conductance (UA), fluid flow rates and fluid inlet temperatures. Cryogenic refrigeration and liquefaction equipment use this geometry almost exclusively. But this type of heat exchangers demands proper design because of the complex geometry …show more content…

b) Difficulty in cleaning of passages, which limits its application to clean and relatively non-corrosive fluids.

c) Difficulty of repair in case of failure or leakage between passages.

1.6 Applications The plate-fin heat exchanger is suitable for use over a wide range of temperatures and pressures for gas-gas, gas-liquid and multi-phase duties. They are used in a variety of applications. They are mainly employed in the field of cryogenics for cryogenic separation and liquefaction of air, natural gas processing and liquefaction, production of petrochemicals and large refrigeration systems. The exchangers that are used for cryogenic air separation and LPG fractionation are the largest and most complex units of the plate fin type and a single unit could be of several meters in length. Brazed aluminum plate fin exchangers are widely used in the aerospace industries because of their low weight to volume ratio and compactness. They are being used mainly in environment control system of the aircraft, avionics and hydraulic oil cooling and fuel heating. Making heat exchangers as compact as possible has been an everlasting demand in automobile and air conditioning industries as both are space conscious. In the automobile sector they are used for making the radiators. The other miscellaneous applications

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