Plate heat exchangers

What is Plate Heat Exchanger? How it Works?

A plate heat exchanger transfers heat between two fluids using metal plates. These plates provide a larger surface area for heat transfer than traditional heat exchangers. The fluids flow through separate channels formed by the plates, speeding up the heat transfer and temperature change without mixing the fluids. Additionally, these devices are easy to clean, and maintain, and can be expanded by adding more plates. Plate heat exchangers are commonly used in industries like HVAC, power plants, and refrigeration due to their efficiency and compact design.

Plate Heat Exchangers

Solutions for sustainability with Alfa Laval Plate Heat Exchangers



Sustainability helps a company’s profitable growth, through energy efficiency, heat recovery, reduced fuel bills, reduced CO2 emissions, savings in maintenance costs, and has a positive impact on the environment.


The series of Solutions for sustainability from Alfa Laval offers real-life application examples on how gasketed plate heat exchangers can help companies with sustainability targets, on the way to a better planet. Each case listed in the series is a true story, with global references each operating with continued savings since their installation.


With rapidly increasing energy costs, plant managers have more and more pressure for their contribution to sustainability. Major equipment installed in food, beverage, manufacturing, and HVAC industries consume high amounts of energy by burning natural resources such as carbon fuels or electricity, which are generated with the same.


Sustainability savings can be in operation, maintenance and energy consumption of equipment such as open cooling tower, how water boiler, steam boiler, chiller, air compressor, cogeneration equipment, and shell-and-tube heat exchangers. Similarly, fluids to be considered for savings are cooling tower water, hot water, flash steam, oils, chilled water, warm wastewater, and compressed air.



Purchasing the correct gasketed plate heat exchanger is also delivering sustainability, as fierce market conditions are forcing manufacturers to size gasketed plate heat exchangers with tolerances of up to 0.5°C and higher pressure drop limitation of up to 30 kPa or more. Due to seasonal and variable loads, accurate measurement of these tolerances is impossible with standard instrumentation and under performance has a severe effect on the running costs of associated equipment such as pumps, chillers, and boilers. Hence gasketed plate heat exchangers designed and supplied with AHRI Performance Certification, is sustainability in itself.



To know more about working principle of Plate Heat Exchanger – CLICK HERE

Plate Heat Exchanger Construction

A plate heat exchanger consists of a number of heat transfer plates which are held in place between a fixed plate and a loose pressure plate to form a complete unit.



Each heat transfer plate has a gasket arrangement which provides two separate channel systems.



The arrangement of the gaskets (field and ring gaskets) results in through flow in single channels, so that the primary and secondary media are in counter-current flow. The media cannot be mixed because of the gasket design.



The plates are corrugated, which creates turbulence in the fluids as they flow through the unit. This turbulence, in association with the ratio of the volume of the media to the size of heat exchanger, gives an effective heat transfer coefficient.

Plate Heat Exchanger Components

The components consist of a fixed end plate, connections and a loose pressure plate, with carrier bars mounted between them. The plates are hung from the top carrier bar. The carrier bars also serve to position the heat transfer plates. The single plates are pulled together to form a plate pack by means of tightening bolts.



Gasketed plate heat exchangers are available in standard sizes or can be individually prepared. To know about plate heat exchanger price in India contact now Pragya Associates.

Plate Heat Exchanger Structure

Plate Heat Exchanger Video's

Challenges To Overcome For All PHE Manufacturers
Inside An Advanced Alfa Laval Service Centre: Plate Heat Exchangers

Types of plate Heat Exchangers

Gasketed plate and frame heat exchangers

Gasketed heat exchangers provide efficient heat transfer in compact equipment with a small footprint. The units have a flexible design and are easy to service and maintain. The product range is extremely wide and is used in duties for heating, cooling, heat recovery, evaporation, and condensation in industries ranging from HVAC, refrigeration, Oil cooling, Oil Filtration Machine, Automobile, Steel industry to heavier processes like chemical processing, oil production, and power generation.
For More Details: Download Alfa Laval Plate & Frame Heat Exchangers Document
Gasketed Plate Heat Exchangers
Alfa Laval liquid/liquid gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchanger
FlexFlow™ plate design on plates for Alfa laval gaskted plate heat exchanger
OmegaPort™ on plates for Alfa Laval gasketed plate heat exchanger

Brazed plate heat exchangers

Copper Brazed Plate Heat Exchangers provide efficient heat transfer with a small footprint. They are maintenance-free, provide a long service lifetime, and can withstand high temperatures and extremely high design pressures. They are used in a range of duties including cooling, heating, evaporation, and condensing.
Brazed Plate Heat Exchangers

Welded spiral heat exchangers

Alfa Laval spiral plate heat exchangers are the ultimate problem solver in extremely dirty and fouling process duties.

The welded plate heat exchangers have self-cleaning features inherent in the design, give unparalleled uptime between service intervals, and quick and easy service turn-around.
Welded Spiral Heat Exchanger

Alfa Laval SpiralPro – Welded Spiral Heat Exchangers

Other Heat Exchangers

Shell and Tube Heat Exchangers India

Our shell and tube heat exchangers are used in many comforts and industry applications for heating and cooling fluids. They consist of a shell with traditional plain tubes or enhanced surface tubes for high thermal performance. The fluids can be liquids or gases, one of which flows inside the tubes while the other flows outside the tubes within the shell. There are single-phase or two-phase heat exchangers, and the latter is used to either boil or condense fluids. Shell & Tube Heat Exchangers are most commonly used in almost all industries like- Refineries, Chemical plants, Fertilizer plants, Genset units, Oil & Gas, and Shipping. The typical use of the Alfa Laval Heat Exchanger is to cool or heat the fluids or gases.

Alfa Laval Curve Flow PHE

• CurveFlowTM distribution area
• ClipGripTM gasket attachment
• Offset gasket groove
• OmegaPortTM noncircular port holes
• Leak chamber
• SteerLockTM plate alignment
• FlexFlowTM plate design

Alfa Laval Curve Flow PHE

Cooling Tower Inter-changer (Energy Saving)

Plate type heat exchangers with counter-current flow are commonly used as a ’cooling water loop circuit breaker’ because of their excellent flow regime making it possible to achieve a temperature approach of as low as 1°C. With the help of an Alfa Laval gasketed plate heat exchanger installed as an interchanger, instead of sending 32°C dirty cooling tower water to the plant, it is possible to supply 33°C closed clean water
The benefits of a gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchanger as an inter-changer
  • Closed-loop cooling for Plant with clean cooling water that is free of debris and steady acceptable levels of Calcium carbonate and Chloride ions
  • Savings in pumping costs with clean pipes, which diameter has not reduced due to adhesion of Calcium deposits on inner hot pipe surfaces.​
Cooling Tower Interchanger

More Plate Heat Exchanger Products

Fusion Bonded Plate Heat Exchangers
fusion bonded plate heat exchangers
Printed Circuit Heat Exchangers
Printed circuit heat exchangers
Welded Plate and Block Heat Exchanger
Welded plate and block heat exchangers
Plate Heat Exchanger India
duroshell heat exchangers