Experimental investigation of thermal and hydraulic performance of panel plate heat exchangers

The current requirements of modern society for sustainable development facing climate change require more actions toward environmental protection, which can be achieved through a higher level of heat recovery in industrial processes. The development of new efficient heat transfer equipment performing enhanced heat transfer characteristics for different processes is of key importance. The present work proposes a novel design of heat exchanger of plate type, the so-called “panel plate heat exchanger”. Based on the experimental investigations of pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient in the channels of wavy form, operating with gas and liquid, the empirical correlations for friction factor and heat transfer coefficients are proposed. In comparison to pillow-plate heat exchangers, it permits an improvement in heat transfer of up to 28 % with an increase of friction factor of about 48 %. The design of the investigated panel plate heat exchangers is calculated for the case study of water heating. In these conditions, the required heat transfer area for the investigated panel heat exchanger with multi-pass channels arrangement is close to that of a pillow-plate heat exchanger, but with prospects of further reduction by optimising its geometrical characteristics.