Study of Gasketed-Plate Heat Exchanger performance based on energy efficiency indexes

The aim of this work is to carry a performance analysis based on first and second law of thermodynamics for some operational configurations of feasible gasketed-plate heat exchangers. To achieve this, 40 simulations were done solving the distributed-U differential model proposed by Pinto and Gut, using an adaptive damped secant shooting method. Heat and exergy transfer effectiveness, dimensionless entropy generation, entropic potential loss and energy efficiency index were calculated when both fluids are above and below room temperature, as well as at least one fluid goes across the room temperature. Additionally, four cold fluid inlet port configuration have been studied. Our main conclusion is that countercurrent configurations have better performance than parallel flow configurations due to influence of finite temperature difference in equipment and higher NTU are reached when fluids are above room temperature for the same geometry. Since gasketed-Plate heat exchangers have applications in different industries, our work constitutes a tool and a guide to select operating and installation conditions.