1353211 Plate heat exchangers; cold storing apparatus LINDE AG 15 Sept 1971 [1 Oct 1970] 42995/71 Headings F4S and F4H A plate heat exchanger, particularly for use as a regenerator in an air fractionation plant, comprises a stack of corrugated rectangular sheet metal plates 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 connected together at their edges in pairs to define flow spaces for one heat exchange fluid, see arrows 14, 15, 16, 17, the pairs of plates 1, 2 and 3, 4 being spaced apart from one another to define therebetween flow spaces 18, 19 for another heat exchange fluid, see arrows 44, 45, 46. These spaces 18, 19 each contain a heat storage mass constituted by spaced elements 24, 25, 26, 27 comprising corrugated sheets 28, 29, 30, 31. The corrugations are obliquely directed so that the corrugations of adjacent panels or sheets cross and mutually support one another at several points. The stack of plates and heat storage elements may be assembled to form a regenerator block which is held within a rectangular housing 61. Partition walls 62, 63, 64 are provided to subdivide the flow paths formed in the direction of arrows 14, 15, 16, 17 into groups so that a plurality of different fluids can be separately passed through the heat exchanger between part cylindrical manifolds 65 and 66. Likewise the flow spaces containing the heat storage masses are grouped together and connected to pairs of manifolds, e.g. 76, 79 and 82, 83 so that a number of further fluids may be separately passed through respective different parts of the regenerator block. In use flows of pure oxygen, pure nitrogen on passing through the block in the directions 14, 15, 16, 17 yield up their cold to the storage masses. Air to be cooled, residual gas, crude gas or an impure fractionation product may then be passed through the heat storage mass in a periodically reversible manner.
