Alfa Laval - Energy

Cooling tower interchanger

Thu, 19 Aug 2021 13:19:09 GMT

To protect your plant is to save with a gasketed plate heat exchanger installed as a cooling tower interchanger. This application provides protection for downstream cooling equipment from fouling, loss in efficiencies due to scale formation and damages from likely chloride corrosion. It will also help to save water and water treatment costs, with usual payback period of well under 2 years.

Chiller Condenser Protection

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 16:41:54 GMT

With a plate heat exchanger working as an interchanger you save in chiller operating costs.

Alfa Laval WideGap gasketed plate heat exchanger for fibrous fluids

Mon, 30 May 2016 02:00:00 GMT

Alfa Laval WideGap gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchangers are suitable for fibrous fluids and for fluids containing coarse particles. The smooth port design ensures that fibres don’t get stuck at the entrance. Typical applications for Alfa Laval WideGap heat exchangers are sugar, bioethanol and pulp and paper processes. Depending on the duty, WideGap heat exchangers can be configured either with wide-wide or wide-narrow channels. This makes the units suitable for heating, cooling and interchanging duties. WideGap heat exchangers are usually configured as multi-pass in order to ensure enough turbulence.

Alfa Laval WideGap offers maximum uptime for fouling applications, high energy efficiency, flexible configuration, high serviceability and access to Alfa Laval’s global service network.

Alfa Laval has an extremely broad range of gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchangers which are used in all types of industries. The number of sizes, plate and gasket materials and available options are enormous.

Alfa Laval assembly of gasketed plate heat exchanger for industrial use

Mon, 30 May 2016 02:00:00 GMT

The animation shows the building components of an industrial gasketed heat exchanger. The features highlighted are the bearing boxes on the tightening bolts, lock washers, keyhole bolt opening, stud bolts, fixed bolt heads, reinforced hangers, 5-point alignment system, roller on pressure plate, lining and distribution area. All of these features are designed to save energy, increase uptime, reduce and simplify maintenance, and enable flexible configuration in case process conditions change.

Alfa Laval 2-pass gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchanger

Wed, 27 Apr 2016 02:00:00 GMT

This animation shows the working principle of an Alfa Laval liquid/liquid 2-pass gasketed plate-and- frame heat exchanger where the fluids run counter-currently through the heat exchanger. The turning plate in the middle of the plate pack directs the flow into the two passes. The hot liquid (illustrated in red) enters through one of the connections in the frame plate. The fluid runs through the heat exchanger in two passes and then leaves through one of the connections in the pressure plate. The cold liquid (illustrated in blue) simultaneously enters through one of the connections in the pressure plate and leaves through one the connections in the frame plate.

As the fluids pass through the heat exchanger, heat is transferred from the hot media to the cold media. Countercurrent flow enables maximum heat recovery possibilities and very close temperature approach can be achieved. Temperature cross is also possible, meaning that the hot outlet can reach a lower temperature than the cold outlet. This can only be achieved to a limited extent with tubular heat exchangers making plate-and-frame heat exchangers more thermally efficient.

The fluids enter through the connections and portholes of the heat transfer plates. Specially designed sealing gaskets located between the plates direct the fluids so that the hot and cold fluids pass counter-currently in alternating channels. When the fluid enters between the plates, it passes over the distribution area. Alfa Laval offers two types of distribution areas: our patented CurveFlowTM and the chocolate pattern. Alfa Laval’s well-designed distribution area is one of the most important features of a plate heat exchanger. Its main purpose is to ensure an even flow of fluid over the entire plate while maximizing heat transfer efficiency and minimizing maldistribution and fouling. In the animation you can see that the distribution area helps the fluids to quickly fill up the entire cross section of the plates.

The animation shows the flow principle of a conventional gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchanger with a 2-pass configuration, but additional passes are possible. It is also possible to have a different number of passes on each side of the heat exchanger. For bigger models with higher flow rates, reinforcing partition plates are sometimes used which are not shown in the animation. Specialized ranges of the gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchanger are also possible such as our semi-welded and WideGap.

For very heat sensitive media, co-current flow is used in gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchangers. The benefit with this design is that the coldest fluid meets the hottest fluid when entering the heat exchanger, minimizing the risk of overheating or freezing sensitive media. In the animation, you can imagine reversing the cold fluid so that both fluids are entering at the frame plate connections.

Alfa Laval liquid/liquid gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchanger

Wed, 27 Apr 2016 02:00:00 GMT

This animation shows the working principle of an Alfa Laval liquid/liquid 1-pass gasketed plate-and- frame heat exchanger where the fluids run counter-currently through the heat exchanger. The hot liquid (illustrated in red) normally enters through one of the upper connections and leaves through the connection underneath. The cold liquid (illustrated in blue) enters through one of the lower connections and leaves through the connection above.

As the fluids pass through the heat exchanger, heat is transferred from the hot media to the cold media. Counter current flow enables maximum heat recovery possibilities and very close temperature approach can be achieved. Temperature cross is also possible, meaning that the hot outlet can reach a lower temperature than the cold outlet. This can only be achieved to a limited extent with tubular heat exchangers making plate-and-frame heat exchangers more thermally efficient.

For very heat sensitive media, co-current flow is used in gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchangers. The benefit with this design is that the coldest fluid meets the hottest fluid when entering the heat exchanger, minimizing the risk of overheating or freezing sensitive media. In the animation you can imagine that the hot fluid is reversed, so that both fluids are entering at the bottom connections.

The animation shows the working principle of a conventional gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchanger, but the same working principle is applicable also to specialized ranges such as our semi-welded and WideGap plate heat exchangers.

Alfa Laval steam heater gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchanger

Wed, 27 Apr 2016 02:00:00 GMT

This animation shows the working principle of an Alfa Laval gasketed plate-and- frame heat exchanger when used as a steam heater. The steam or vapour (illustrated in grey) enters through one of the upper connections and the condensate leaves through the connection underneath. The cold liquid (illustrated in blue transferring into red) enters through one of the lower connections and leaves through the connection above.

As the fluids pass through the heat exchanger heat is transferred from the condensing steam/vapour to the cold media.
The fluids enter through the connections and port holes of the heat transfer plates. Specially designed sealing gaskets located between the plates direct the fluids so that the hot and cold fluids pass counter-currently in alternating channels. When the fluid enters between the plates, it passes over the distribution area. Alfa Laval offers two types of distribution areas: our patented CurveFlowTM and the chocolate pattern. Alfa Laval’s well-designed distribution area is one of the most important features of a plate heat exchanger. Its main purpose is to ensure an even flow of fluid over the entire plate while maximizing heat transfer efficiency and minimizing maldistribution and fouling. In the animation you can see that the distribution area helps the fluids to quickly fill up the entire cross section of the plates.