Thermal effectiveness of multipass plate exchangers

Abstract Plate heat exchanger arrangements, with a constant number of streams per pass for each fluid, and uniform fluid distribution, are classified in terms of five basic parameters. A program based on the diagonalization of a system of linear differential equations is constructed for the numerical calculation of the thermal effectiveness of an arbitrary arrangement. An alternative program is developed in the limit of a large number of plates. A comparative analysis of the results obtained is performed. Basic trends are discussed, and the early onset of asymptotic behaviour is pointed out.