The dynamic characteristics of a countercurrent plate heat exchanger

Abstract Theoretical and experimental analyses of the dynamic characteristics of a plate heat exchanger have been carried out. First- and second-order models with dead time are proposed and checked against results obtained by experimental sinusoidal and pulse testing. It has been found that the dynamic response of the outlet temperature θ co of the cold stream to variations in the mass flow m h of the hot stream most closely approaches the second-order transfer function θ co (s) m h (s) = H(τ a s + 1) e −τ d s τ 2 p s 2 + 2ζτ p s + 1