SONDEX® Spiral heat exchangers

What does that mean for you?

The core of our spiral heat exchangers is the concentric spiral plate coils nested in the shell. The coils form two completely separated channels with a countercurrent flow arrangement that allows the heat exchanger to achieve very close temperature approaches, making our spiral units excellent for heat recovery applications.

To maintain the plate gap, we weld spacer studs onto the coils. Besides supporting the plate gap, the studs also greatly contribute to the turbulent flow. Our Free Flow option for spiral heat exchangers is stud-less, sacrificing some turbulence in exchange for a much larger plate gap for the most challenging media. These options enable us to efficient handle any duty and we offer you a choice of regular or Free Flow channels on both sides, or a combination of the two.

No application or duty is the same for a spiral heat exchanger, which is why we customize every single one of our units from the ground up according to your specifications. We are dedicated to providing you with an individually optimized solution designed for maximal uptime and reliable operation.

Easy maintenance and cleaning

The spiral coil itself also contributes to the turbulent flow, and the single-channel design helps alleviate fouling with a “self-cleaning” mechanism. Accumulated deposits create local increases in velocity, creating a scrubbing effect that is enough to loosen the build-up in fouling in most cases. This allows our SONDEX^® spiral heat exchangers to operate in very long sessions without maintenance or cleaning.

Some media, however, are so challenging that the heat exchanger requires more frequent maintenance and cleaning. With this in mind, we have designed hinged covers that are sealed with C-clamps, creating a swing door that is very easy to open and close without any special tools required, letting you access the entire coil for inspection and cleaning.