Heat exchangers are important, and used frequently in the processing, heat and power, air-conditioning and refrigeration, heat recovery, transportation and manufacturing industries. Such equipment is also important in electronics cooling and for environmental issues like thermal pollution, waste disposal and sustainable development.

New from WIT Press this book provides a general introduction and historical background to plate heat exchangers (PHEs), then discusses construction and operation (PHE types, plate pattern, etc.) and gives examples of PHEs in different application areas. Material issues (plates, gaskets, brazing materials) and manufacturing methods are also treated. The major part of the book concerns the basic design methods for both single-phase and two-phase flow cases, various flow arrangements, thermal-hydraulic performance in single-phase flow and for PHEs operating as condensers and evaporators. Fouling problems are also discussed and in a section on extended design and operation issues, modern Research and Development (R & D) tools like computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods are discussed. Unique features for PHEs are discussed throughout.

Providing state-of-the-art knowledge this book will therefore be of interest to Engineers in industries interested in heat exchangers and more specifically PHE’s, R&D and project engineers in industries designing or retrofitting heat exchanger networks or improving energy systems. It will also be an ideal text for graduate and PHD students.