PHE is an efficient and compact heat exchange equipment, which is superior to shell-and-tube heat exchangers in many aspects. Under the same heat transfer load, the volume of the plate heat exchanger is 1/3~1/6 of the shell-and-tube type, and the weight is only 1/2~1/5 of the shell-and-tube type. The required refrigerant charge Only about 1/7 of the shell-and-tube type.
In terms of water heat transfer, under the same load and same water speed, the heat transfer coefficient K value of the plate heat exchanger can reach 2000~4650W/(㎡·K), which is the shell-and-tube heat exchanger 2~5 times.
Because the plate heat exchanger has the advantages of high heat transfer efficiency, small size, light weight, convenient area and process combination, it has been widely used in the refrigeration industry, such as in chillers and air-cooled heat pumps.
Heat exchangers such as evaporators, condensers, heat recovery heat exchangers (superheat coolers), liquid subcoolers, and oil coolers of screw compressors are increasingly used in hot water units. Figure 1 is a schematic flow diagram of an air-cooled heat pump chiller and hot water unit. In the figure, the plate heat exchanger is used as an evaporator during cooling and as a condenser during heating.