A. Heat transfer and pressure drop

Although the performance of the many different corrugation forms can vary considerably, the isothermal channel pressure loss in a plate heat exchanger can always be calculated from a friction factor type of equation:

\[\label{eq1} \varDelta p= \dfrac{2fLN_{p}\dot{m}^{2}}{pd_{e}} \tag{1}\]

Here L is the flow length given by the ratio of plate area and channel flow width.

For one particular small plate heat exchanger with intermating plates, Figure 282.1, the friction factor would be predicted from the following equations.