Continuous spiral (without center tube) baffle heat exchanger

The most commonly used baffle in traditional heat exchangers is the arc-shaped baffle. Due to drawbacks such as flow obstruction and high pressure drops, the existence of flow dead zones, easy scaling, a small average temperature difference for heat transfer, and susceptibility to failure under vibration conditions, it has gradually been replaced by spiral baffles in recent years. An ideal spiral baffle should have a continuous spiral surface. Due to the difficulties in processing, the baffle plates currently in use are generally composed of several 1/4 circular sector plates connected alternately to form a surface that approximates a helical shape. During deflection, the fluid is in a nearly spiral flow state. Compared to arc-shaped baffle plates, under the same operating conditions, such baffle plates (referred to as discontinuous spiral baffle plates) can reduce the pressure drop by about 45%, while increasing the overall heat transfer coefficient by 20% to 30%. Under the same heat load, this allows for a **reduction in the size of the heat exchanger. Although the processing technology for discontinuous spiral baffle plates is relatively mature and has been applied in the petrochemical industry, it still has many shortcomings. For example, the joints between the fan-shaped plates feature a rough, acute-angle transition, which creates backpressure on the fluid moving in the axial direction; the sudden change in direction as the fluid passes through these joints results in energy loss, and this energy loss is more severe when the helical angle is large ； When two adjacent fan-shaped plates are joined in space, corner plates must be added to fill the gap, which is labor-intensive, generates waste, and increases fluid resistance. In contrast, continuous spiral baffles with ideal spiral surfaces exhibit better heat transfer and flow characteristics, but the manufacturing challenges associated with them must be addressed first in practical applications.

Amazing! How are baffle plates manufactured?

We are a specialized testing institution that has made many attempts; the process was indeed very difficult. It was finally successful to produce it, and a lot of raw data was collected; all of this is confidential, by the way. We welcome you to cooperate with us.

Information that is confidential cannot be disclosed; please understand. If you have a need for spiral baffle heat exchangers, feel free to send a private message: handshake

It is indeed high-end, but it doesn’t seem as good as spiral-wound tubes

Processing is difficult, and there are also limits on the thickness of the baffle plates, right?

It has high processing difficulty, requires a lot of materials, and presents challenges in terms of tooling. Its heat transfer and resistance properties are not much better than those of the folded-plate type spiral baffle, so there is no need to use it.

It’s a matter of perspective – can that folded-panel shape really be called a continuous spiral? The performance of our product is definitely much better than that of the so-called spiral made from folded panels.