PHE-13 Two-phase flow regimes in plate heat exchangers

J. W. Palen

2007

A review of the open literature and HTRI data demonstrates that flow regime boundaries for plate heat exchangers differ from those for shell-and-tube exchangers, and yet no one has proposed flow regime maps that illustrate those differences. This report documents the development of new two-phase flow regime maps for both upflow and downflow in corrugated plate heat exchangers. Analysis of the available literature and data also validates the use of the HTRI criterion for dryout in the current HTRI plate exchanger boiling method as implemented in Xphe^®.