Heat Exchanger Pass Partition Confinement 2

[solidhardhead]

Are there any cases aside from TEMA "R" where it is considered good practice to confine the pass partition on a heat exchanger? i.e. high pressure or high temperature designs

Thanks

 

[Christine74]

It's a good idea to use confined gaskets in multipass exchangers where there is 1) a high pressure drop, and 2) a large diameter. Reason being that the these exchangers are susceptible to pass partition bypass at the gasket joints, so adding a groove would provide extra stability.

-Christine

 

[rmw]

Another reason would be high pressure per se (as opposed to and in addition to high pressure drop) because as the channel deflects with pressure difference the pass partition plate is trying to act like a gusset and prevent the channel from deflecting. Lots of stresses get transmitted to the gaskets in the process.

An old Civil Engineering buddy of mine who didn't know much about heat transfer none the less recognized what the stresses and deflections were on the head of a HP heat exchanger that was his responsibility. He taught this old ME a trick or two about how that head deflected from no pressure to full pressure (5K psi in his case).

If you have a really High pressure, in addition to the gasket question you pose, you should also consider full pen welds to the channel head or barrel or both depending on your channel design.

rmw

 

[SnTMan]

I generally doubt there is any good reason NOT to confine the pass rib gasket. I have seen the gasket ribs washed out from under the pass plates before.

Regards,

Mike

 

[Tomtation]

For assembly purposes it is always a good idea for the pass partition groove to be at least 1/16" deeper than the gasket thickness. The groove will hold the gasket during assembly and the extra depth helps the assembler align the pass partition plate into the groove. If the depth is less than or equal to the gasket thickness, you may misalign the pass partition plate when assembling and not compress the gasket at all, or worse yet do some damage.