Strainers and Filtration

Effective Filtration To Maximise Uptime

Heatric recommends strainers (typically 320 micron) as standard fitment for all Heatric exchangers during normal operation in order to remove particulates that may cause blocking of the units; However, during commissioning of a Heatric exchanger, these are specified as mandatory to remove foreign objects that may be present in pipework which could cause damage to the exchanger core.

Filtration options

Heatric recommend 2 types of strainers for use with Heatric’s diffusion bonded units.

1. Gas side:  In-line cone-type which are extremely robust and have high burst pressures
2. Coolant side: On-line cleanable solutions with automatic backwash

Correct filtration is mandatory for all Heatric exchangers at commissioning to ensure that the danger of contamination and damage due to potential foreign objects in new systems is minimised.

The Heatric range of strainers

Heatric designs and manufactures custom-built strainers to protect PCHE passages from blocking by over-sized particulates. The company offers high integrity in-line conical strainers on the gas side with burst pressures up to 10 bar, and on-line serviceable cleanable strainers for the cooling medium side.

In-line strainer

Heatric’s in-line conical strainer can either be fitted into an internal tee-piece included in the exchanger header or installed in the pipe work immediately upstream of the exchanger. The in-line strainer provides sufficient protection for strainers that are only expected to require occasional servicing such as those on the process side.

On-line cleanable strainer

For the cooling medium side Heatric offers a permanent, ‘serviceable on-line’ strainer, allowing for cleaning without interruption to operations. Coolant side strainers have flanged connections for inclusion in the pipe work.

The operator should consider using a Heatric on-line cleanable strainer if the strainer is likely to require regular servicing e.g. if used in a closed cooling medium system.

Heatric’s high-integrity gas-side strainers are all custom-built to the operator’s specific needs. Due to their robust construction, they can handle differential pressures up to 10 bars compared to other strainers which can only handle pressure drops of 1-2 bars. The use of Heatric’s strainers provides several other benefits such as:

• Confidence and flexibility during operation
• Optimised positioning
• Easy removal
• Fully serviceable
• No interruption to production