Spiral heat exchangers, how do they work and why do we use them. Learn how spiral heat exchangers work in this article.
Spiral heat exchangers look something like this. We have a flange inlet on the front face with the outlet located on the top, then we have an inlet from another fluid. Also on the top with the located on the rear face behind the end plates we find two sheets of metal inside which spiral together around the interior to form a channel which the fluids will now flow through the channel completely separates the two fluids
We see the first fluid enters the exchanger and fills the chamber, then flows around the channel and to the outlet, meanwhile on the other side the second fluid is entering via the top flowing around the channel and into the chamber where it then exits the two fluids enter and exit at different temperatures this type of heat exchanger isn’t as commonly used however, because the design has only one channel for the fluid to flow through the velocity remains high making it harder for fouling to occur whereas plate and even tube heat exchangers divide the flow into multiple paths so these are ideal for installations where sludge like substances are processed for example in anaerobic digester where the thick sludge is recirculated through a spiral heat exchanger to maintain a certain temperature this releases methane from the digester to power and then turn an electrical generator.
