The Fouling Factor is a subject that periodically comes back into the spotlight, a subject that we’ve indeed already treated in other videos in our Tempco YouTube channel and from the pages of this blog. Fouling Factor in plate heat exchangers is in fact a crucial element to determine the sizing of the exchanger upon the conditions of a certain application.

The occasion to go back on it was given by a recent experience for an application made for a customer, who requested a fouling factor with a value usually related to shell and tube exchangers. The results were utterly deadly, because sizing the exchanger using fouling factor values suitable for a shell and tube exchanger led to a slowdown of the speeds of fluids inside the exchanger and therefore to an increase of the fouling, drastically reducing the efficiency of the thermal transfer rate.

The solution to the problem has been to remove 30% of the plates from the exchanger, getting back to a fouling factor value more suitable for a plate heat exchanger.

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