Marine heat exchangers are a lot similar to that of regular heat exchangers except they are only found on ships. They can be utilized in many different ways, for cooling as well as heating – as implied from the name. Marine plate heat exchangers and marine shell and tube heat exchangers are the two types of heat exchanger in a ship that are used on-board ships extensively. Marine heat exchanger maintenance prevents galvanic corrosion and fouling from dissimilar metals.

Types of Heat Exchangers

There are a lot of marine power heat exchangers that are used on ships. Plate, shell and tube heat changers are the common types found on-board.

Plate Heat Exchangers

Marine plate heat exchangers consist of several parallel plates that make up the main cooler unit when compressed. Marine plate heat exchangers are designed in a way that they make passageways for the fluid to flow to the plates when placed side by side. Gaskets at the edge of each plate prevent the mixing of fluids.

Shell and Tube Heat Exchangers

Marine shell and tube heat exchangers are made up of a bundle of tubes inside a larger shell. Marine shell and tube heat exchangers are either built-in single or double-pass configuration, relying on the level of cooling required.

Ship Heat Exchangers

A marine engine heat exchanger decreases a medium’s temperature by transferring it in another medium when separated by a membrane. The maximized surface area of the separating wall of the two mediums enables efficient operation.

Heat Exchangers Onboard ship

Every system on the ship is interlinked in some way, and so the failure of one operation can result in a vessel coming to a standstill. There are many uses of heat exchangers in a ship which play a vital role for the following systems to work efficiently:

• Propulsion plant
• The auxiliary power generation system
• Starting air system
• Fuel injection system
• Refrigeration system
• Condensing system
• Freshwater system
• Steam turbine unit