Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of a plate heat exchanger using a propylene-glycol/water mixture as the working fluid

Plate heat exchangers are becoming increasingly important because of their potential applications in industrial processes, especially in terms of their thermal performance and their limited pressure drop. An experimental investigation to acquire both heat-transfer and pressure-drop data for a plate heat exchanger was conducted in order to respond to these interests. A propylene-glycol/water mixture was used as the working fluid in order to provide lower Reynolds numbers than those provided by water at similar test conditions. The plate heat exchanger was composed of 31 plates, each with a chevron angle of 30 degrees. The isothermal pressure drop data were taken in the fully laminar flow regime for Reynolds numbers from 10 to 80. The heat transfer data were taken in the fully laminar flow regime for Reynolds numbers of 80 to 720 with heat transfer rates of 1.1 {times} 10{sup 5} to 6.5 {times} 10{sup 5} W. The experimental data for the friction factor and Nusselt number were correlated using a standard power-law function. Other published heat-transfer and friction factor correlations for plate heat exchangers with similar plates at selected conditions are compared to the data.