Compact Heat Exchangers for the Process Industry

Abstract

Compact heat exchangers (CHEs), having light weight, minimum volume and high effectiveness, have played a major technological role in the advancement of the transportation industry. CHEs will also play a similar important role in the advancement of the process industry. However, the operating environment and applications for the process industry are significantly different. After providing basic background information for the CHEs, the present barriers to the general application of CHEs have been described, and the considerable energy-savings potential with the use of CHEs has been outlined. Finally, future developments for the process plant heat exchangers are summarized. Users and manufacturers of process industry exchangers must now seriously consider the use of CHEs in future applications to make substantial savings in cost and energy.