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6 October 2006

Stainless steel heat exchanger for the laser industry

Despite its compact size and light weight, the AlfaNova™ compact heat exchanger is making a big impact in the industrial laser sector where it is being installed as a direct replacement for conventional shell & tube exchangers to improve efficiency and save space and weight.

Launched in late 2003, AlfaNova was the world's first – and to date the only – all stainless steel heat exchanger. Like the welded and brazed units that are its immediate predecessors, AlfaNova requires no gaskets, providing several significant advantages over conventional, gasketted heat exchangers:

  • eliminates any potential incompatibility between gasket elastomer and process fluids
  • performance even at extreme temperatures and pressures
  • enhanced corrosion and fatigue resistance

The AlfaNova is completely self-contained, extremely lightweight, very robust and capable of handling temperatures from -196 0C up to +550 0 C and pressures as high as 30 barg. Compared with conventional shell & tube or tube in tube exchangers, it provides much closer temperature approaches and occupies as little as 20% of the space.

AlfaNova's superior mechanical strength and thermal performance stem from a combination of features. The exchanger' has a corrugated plate design that optimizes heat transfer, with low hold-up volumes and uniform distribution of the media through the channels. Also, in the all-stainless steel exchanger the chemical and mechanical properties of the joints are almost identical to those of the parent materials. In addition to enhancing mechanical strength and thermal perfromance, this provides levels of corrosion resistance that make it ideal for many duties where hygiene and purity are essential.

Contact: Peter Rose
E: peter.rose@alfalaval.com
T: +44 (0)1276 63383


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