By Aeishwarya Chaudhari and Mahesh Kulkarni, BASF
The range of heat exchangers used within the process industry is extensive. In this article, BASF’s Lead Mechanical Engineer, Aeishwarya Chaudhari, and Mechanical Team Lead, Mahesh Kulkarni, offer a detailed overview of heat exchanger types and their applications.
Heat exchanger types based on flow
Fundamentally, heat exchangers can be categorized into the following main types based on the flow direction of the fluids in a heat exchanger:
Co-current flow type
These heat exchangers are also known as heat exchangers with parallel flow. In this type of heat exchanger, both the fluids flow in the same direction as depicted in Figure 1 (See PDF)
Counter-current flow type
These heat exchangers are the ones in which both the fluids flow in the opposite direction as seen in Figure 1 (See PDF)
Cross flow type
These heat exchangers are the ones in which both the fluids flow in the direction perpendicular to each other as depicted in Figure 1 (See PDF)
Hybrid flow type
These heat exchangers are the ones in which more than one type of flow types are used for the heat transfer as seen in Figure 1. (See PDF)