Local temperature distribution of a plate heat exchanger undergoing crystallization fouling

Berce, Jure (author), Zupančič, Matevž (author), Može, Matic (author), Golobič, Iztok (author)

The compact design of plate heat exchangers prevents local insights during system operation, which would be desired when designing for and evaluating a given fouling problem. Severe foulant build-up is often confined to specific regions within the flow channel geometry and could be mitigated to an extent by managing the distribution of flow if areas with high susceptibility towards fouling could be identified. We conducted laboratory crystallization fouling experiments on a counter-current brazed plate heat exchanger, coupling real-time measurements of flow rates and temperatures with infrared thermography. This non-intrusive method of spatiotemporal plate temperature characterization allowed local detection and evaluation of severely fouled areas within the upper channel. In the investigated case, the highest susceptibility towards salt crystallization was observed in the flow stagnation zone near the hot outlet, where the largest temperature gradient between both fluids was present and the driving supersaturation was largest. Apart from its use in future plate heat exchanger design, the presented approach can be coupled with computational fluid dynamics simulations, as was illustrated in this work.

• Language: English
• Keywords: plate heat exchanger, fouling, crystallization, infrared thermography
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FS - Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: 10 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 61, art. 68
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-171236
• UDC: 536.24:621.565
• ISSN on article: 0947-7411
• DOI: 10.1007/s00231-025-03593-1
• COBISS.SI-ID: 246094851
• Publication date in RUL: 20.08.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Heat and mass transfer
• Shortened title: Heat mass transf.
• Publisher: Springer, Springer-Verl. New York
• ISSN: 0947-7411
• COBISS.SI-ID: 2053915

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: ploščni prenosnik toplote, odlaganje nečistoč, kristalizacija, infrardeča termografija

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P2-0223
• Name: Prenos toplote in snovi

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: J2-50085
• Name: Raziskave medfaznih pojavov kapljic in mehurčkov na funkcionaliziranih površinah ob uporabi napredne diagnostike za razvoj okoljskih tehnologij prihodnosti in izboljšanega prenosa toplote (DroBFuSE)