Other Types of Heat Exchange Equipment

While the shell-and-tube heat exchanger is the most common type of heat exchanger in the process industries, it does have some significant limitations  

The most important alternatives to shell-and-tube designs are  

A gasketed plate heat exchanger is usually significantly cheaper than a shell-and-tube heat exchanger for the same duty. This is especially the case if the shell-and-tube heat exchanger must be fabricated in more expensive materials such as stainless steel. 

Another advantage in retrofit is that an existing frame can often accommodate additional plates if a higher capacity is required. For the same flowrate, an increase in the number of plates decreases the flowrate through the channels and therefore the heat transfer coefficients. However, if the flowrate increases, the number of plates can be increased to accommodate a higher duty (at the expense of increased pressure drop). 

The costs for this form of exchanger are higher than those for gasketed plate heat exchangers. An important limitation is that they can only be cleaned chemically and not mechanically. 

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