Operating plants that need to heat and cool various chemicals in their process operation have many types of heat exchangers from which to choose. Knowledgeable operating plants rely on their past experiences with various type of heat exchangers to determine which of those heat exchangers best fit their processing needs and give them the performance to meet their objectives while offering the best maintenance alternatives.
Many of the advantages of one type of heat exchanger over another type of heat exchanger are obvious to a knowledgeable operating plant while many other advantages are much more subtle.
The obvious advantages of shell and tube heat exchangers over other types of heat exchangers such as plate and frame heat exchangers whether gasketed or all welded, hairpin heat exchangers, spiral heat exchangers, or block heat exchangers are as follows:
- Many more shell and tube heat exchangers exist which allow for the ease of securing competitive bids. The number of so-called specialty heat exchangers
Is relatively small making competitive bidding more difficult.
- The ease of performing maintenance at the plant on the shell and tube heat exchanger. Specialty heat exchangers quite often require sending the heat exchanger back to the factory for repair and many are located overseas.
- The local shops in many areas that specialize in the repair of shell and tube heat exchangers These shops only do repairs and are numerous.
The more subtle advantages of shell and tube heat exchangers over the many other various types of heat exchangers are as follows:
- The “specialty” heat exchangers are much more fragile than the beefy shell and tube heat exchanger and is subject to unintentional damage by overzealous, heavy handed plant mechanics in their daily duties.
- The shell and tube heat exchanger have far fewer gaskets utilized and they lead to a less expensive maintenance cost when repairs are necessary.
- Upset process conditions cause less damage to a shell & tube heat exchanger as opposed to the operating capabilities of “specialty” heat exchangers. Quite often, the operating efficiency of the these “specialty” heat exchangers are reduced far more drastically by process upset conditions resulting in fouling, plating and unintended thermal shock and thermal differential expansion. These can cause excessive fouling and even heat exchanger failure.
All heat exchangers are subject to the problems that plague the performance of the heat exchanger, even the shell and tube heat exchanger. Only the AMETEK Fluoropolymer shell and tube heat exchanger is exempt from any of these problems. The 100% fluoropolymer tube side construction of the AMETEK Fluoropolymer shell and tube heat exchanger is never affected by fouling as the non-stick tubes never foul, it is never affected by thermal shock or differential thermal expansion. Knowledgeable chemical processing realizes that if they are processing harsh highly corrosive chemicals that foul, plate-out, or cause thermal shock and differential thermal expansion, their best option to ensure a long heat exchanger life and to ensure limited maintenance requirements, they should opt for AMETEK Fluoropolymer shell and tube heat exchanger to obtain these advantages. Using any other heat exchanger will leave them wanting.
