Common failures of plate heat exchangers-part1

External leakage of the plate heat exchanger: Mainly manifested as leakage (small volume, discontinuous water droplets) and leakage (large volume, continuous water droplets). The main places where leakage occurs are the seal between the plate and the plate, the two sealing leakage grooves of the plate, and the inner side of the end plate and the compression plate.

Causes of leakage of plate heat exchanger:

1. The clamping size is not in place, the size is uneven everywhere (the size deviation should not be greater than 3 mm) or the clamping bolts are loose.

2. Part of the gasket is out of the sealing groove, the main sealing surface of the gasket is dirty, the gasket is damaged or the gasket of the plate heat exchanger is aging.

3. The plate is deformed and the assembly misalignment causes the running pad.

4. There are cracks in the sealing groove of the plate or the second sealing area.

Treatment method for external leakage of plate heat exchanger:

1. In the no-pressure state, re-clamp the equipment according to the clamping size provided by the manufacturer. The size should be uniform, and the deviation of the compacted size should not exceed ±0.5N (mm) (N is the total number of plates). The parallelism between the plates should be kept within 2 mm.

2. Mark the leaking parts, then disassemble the heat exchanger and investigate and solve them one by one. Reassemble or replace the gaskets and plates.

3. Disassemble the open heat exchanger, repair the deformed parts of the plate or replace the plate. When there is no spare part for the plate, the plate at the deformed part can be temporarily removed and then reassembled for use.

4. When reassembling the disassembled plates, clean the plate surface to prevent dirt from adhering to the gasket sealing surface.