Heat exchangers: selection, service, and refurbishment
Industrial Sales Solutions represents Kelvion, CC Jensen and JM Canty across Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and eastern Montana.
Plate and frame service and refurbishment, air-cooled exchanger bundle replacements, LWC and K°Bloc rebuilds, cooling tower components, and shell & tube retubing in the field. Engineering support includes thermal and performance analysis for new selections, re-rates, and units already in service.
Duty & sizing
Send what you have: flows and temperatures, an old datasheet, or just the problem. Selection comes back with the exchanger type, materials and construction that fit the duty.
New equipment
Plate and welded exchangers, air-cooled units and condensers, cooling towers, transformer cooling and heat recovery.
Install & start-up
Submittal review, rigging and clearance checks, field support through commissioning and handover.
Operate & protect
Oil cleanliness, process visibility, and fouling tracked against the original design.
Refurbish & re-rate
Rebuild, re-gasket, retube — or add surface to an existing frame. All brands.
Heat exchangers by system
Select a system below, then click any piece of equipment on the drawing.
Polacel cooling tower
Induced-draft counterflow towers in stainless bolted construction, with thermal performance certified to CTI STD-201. Stackable modules reach 25 MW per unit and field-erected cells go to 100 MW. Fill, drift eliminator and mechanical component replacement on existing towers often recovers capacity at a fraction of the cost of a new cell.
Plant cooling water · power generation · chemical and process facilities
Three ways to reject the same heat. Click any piece of equipment for detail.
Diagram key — cooling water and heat rejection
- Polacel cooling tower (Kelvion) — induced-draft counterflow evaporative rejection, packaged and field-erected, plus fill and mechanical component replacement on existing cells of any make.
- Air-cooled condenser (Kelvion) — A-frame dry condensing of steam turbine exhaust, eliminating tower make-up water.
- Air-cooled heat exchanger / fin-fan (Kelvion) — finned-tube dry cooling for process gas and liquid, remote radiators, engine and compressor packages.
- Gasketed plate interchanger (Kelvion) — closed loop to open tower water separation, plate pack removable for cleaning and re-rating, on any brand.
Lube oil cooler
Brazed plate for compact skid-mounted duty, gasketed plate where the cooler has to open for cleaning, or an air-cooled bundle where there's no cooling water at the machine.
Turbine and compressor lube · gearbox oil · hydraulic systems
The pressurized circuit keeps the machine running. The offline loop decides how long it lasts.
Diagram key — lube oil and rotating equipment
- Lube oil cooler (Kelvion) — brazed plate, gasketed plate or air-cooled, selected on footprint, cleanability and cooling water availability.
- Offline filtration (CC Jensen CJC) — side-stream depth filtration removing particles, water and oxidation products while the machine runs.
- Varnish Removal Unit (CC Jensen CJC) — recovery of systems already showing deposit on valves, coolers and bearings.
- Reservoir and water separation (CC Jensen CJC) — continuous combined water and particle removal, capable of maintaining water content below 0.01%.
- Transformer oil system (Kelvion, CC Jensen) — substation radiators and oil coolers plus insulating oil filtration.
Feed / effluent interchanger
Fully welded block construction gives plate-level efficiency in duties that rule out gaskets — solvents, acids, high temperature — while still opening on all four sides for mechanical cleaning.
Chemical process trains · refining · solvent recovery · high-temperature interchange
Interchange, condensing, reboiling and stack recovery — plus a way to see inside the vessel.
Diagram key — process, steam and recovery
- Feed / effluent interchanger (Kelvion K°Bloc) — fully welded block for gasket-free service, still openable for mechanical cleaning.
- Overhead condenser (Kelvion) — plate, welded-block or air-cooled condensing on column overheads.
- Reboiler (Kelvion K°Flex) — welded plate reboiler duty on columns and evaporators, far lighter and more compact than a kettle.
- Economizer and air preheater (Kelvion) — flue-gas heat recovery, designed in or retrofitted to an existing stack.
- Particle and fluid analysis (JM Canty) — inline particle sizing on liquids and solids through fused-glass ports, plus vessel lighting and high-temperature cameras.
- Carbon capture exchangers (Kelvion) — flue gas recuperators, lean/rich amine exchangers, reboilers, condensers and lean amine coolers.
Plate heat exchanger refurbishment — all brands serviced
A plate heat exchanger that has lost duty is usually a rebuild, not a replacement. Plates are cleaned, tested and re-gasketed to restore thermal performance, and the condition of the plate pack can help identify what caused the loss of duty. Send us the nameplate and a photo of the plate pack and we'll come back with a scope.
Refurbishment scope
- Gasketed plate & frame
- Semi-welded / LWC
- K°Bloc welded block
- Air-cooled exchanger bundle replacement
- Cooling tower fill and mechanical components
- All manufacturers, all models
Onsite capability
- Field teardown and reassembly
- Piping connections broken and remade
- Wash and close for light fouling
- Leak check and return to service
- Shell & tube retubing and tube sleeving
- Scheduling built around the outage window
Shop process
- Pressure wash and chemical bath
- Dye penetrant testing for cracks and pinholes — 100% of plates, or an agreed percentage
- Groove preparation and gasket installation to OEM guidelines, cured in house
- Hydrostatic test before shipment
- Plates returned in assembly sequence
Parts and materials
- Gasket sets, glued and clip-in
- Replacement plates
- Frame hardware, tie bolts, carrying and guide bars
Re-rate and upgrade
- Added plates for increased duty
- Plate pattern changes
- Plate material upgrades for harsh conditions
What to specify, and when
The types that come up in nearly every project, and where each one earns its place. When the catalog doesn't have it, the engineering group builds to the duty.
Gasketed Plate Heat Exchangers
Liquid-to-liquid · close approachThe default for clean liquid duties. Opens for cleaning and takes added plates later, so it's the right call when the load may grow or the water is dirty.
Semi-Welded / LWC
Refrigerants · aggressive mediaLaser-welded plate pairs on one side, gaskets on the other. Specify when one fluid can't be trusted against an elastomer but you still want the plate to open.
K°Bloc Fully Welded
High temp · high pressureGasket-free block with removable panels. The answer when gaskets are ruled out entirely but you still need mechanical cleaning access.
Brazed Plate Heat Exchangers
Compact · OEM · skidNo frame, no gaskets, minimum footprint. Right for clean duties on packaged equipment where nobody will ever open it.
Air-Cooled Exchangers
Dry cooling · no waterFinned-tube bundles with forced or induced draft, for duties where fan power is cheaper than water treatment. Groovy fin and DIESTA tube options where the duty is tight or the plot is limited.
Air-Cooled Condensers
Steam turbine exhaustSpecify where there is no water to permit, treat or evaporate. Turbine backpressure follows ambient, so the design day drives the whole selection. Modular construction allows heavy preassembly in the shop or at grade, cutting site erection hours.
Polacel Cooling Towers
Evaporative rejectionStainless bolted construction, erected quickly onsite or pre-assembled offsite in complete cells. Stackable modules reach 25 MW per unit; field-erected cells go to 100 MW. Thermal performance is certified to CTI STD-201, which is worth asking any tower vendor for. Fill, drift eliminators and mechanical components are available for existing cells of any make.
Transformer Cooling
Substation · ONAF / OFAFOil coolers and radiators sized to the transformer loading profile and site ambient rather than to a catalog rating.
Heat Recovery
Flue gas · stackFinned-tube surface pulling usable heat out of the stack. Designed into a new unit, or retrofitted where fuel cost has made the payback obvious.
Carbon Capture
Amine trains · DAC · desublimationCapture duties draw on most of the range at once — welded plate, air-cooled and tower technology working together. Kelvion also publishes K°Focus, an online tool for working through thermal selection on a capture train.
Groovy fin and DIESTA tube
Air-cooled units are limited by the air side. Kelvion's Groovy fin replaces the flat fin with three waves, which turns the air in behind the tube instead of letting it slip past. That costs some pressure drop, so the fair comparison is at equal fan power — and on that basis the air-side coefficient climbs by up to 20%.
Where the restriction is inside the tube rather than outside — viscous fluids, lean amine service — the DIESTA tube structures both surfaces to attack the same problem from the other side.
A better coefficient means less surface, and less surface means a smaller structure. That shows up in foundation, steel and plot cost before it ever shows up in the exchanger price. Kelvion supplies an HTRI plug-in for both on request, so the gain can be modeled in your own selection software.
Most of what we quote isn't off a shelf
Catalog product covers the common duties. The rest gets designed — and that's usually where the difficult jobs end up.
Materials
Titanium, high-nickel and super-austenitic alloys where standard stainless won't survive the chemistry.
Fit
Units engineered to an existing footprint, foundation, nozzle orientation or shipping envelope.
Packages
Skid-mounted and modular assemblies built around the exchanger rather than bolted on afterward.
Duty specials
Non-standard plate patterns, and pressure and temperature ratings outside the catalog envelope.
Two things decide whether it holds its duty
A heat exchanger leaves the shop at nameplate performance. What takes it back down isn't the exchanger — it's what's flowing through it. Both sides of that problem are on our line card.
What's in the process
JM CantyCanty measures the stream itself, inline and at process conditions. Because Canty images each object rather than relying only on an inferred dimension, particles, droplets and bubbles can be classified by shape while size, count and concentration are reported independently. The analysis can be recorded on video for verification.
That matters because water and solids lead to different answers. One is a materials and corrosion problem; the other is a plate gap and fouling problem. Get it wrong and the fix usually isn't a tighter cleaning schedule — it's a different plate, in wide-gap or free-flow construction.
- Inline particle sizing on the process streamSize, shape and solids loading measured in the fluid actually going through the exchanger — the numbers that set plate gap, fouling factor and cleaning interval. Shape parameters follow ISO 9276-6.Cooling water · glycol · slurry duties
- Solids carryover ahead of the exchangerConfirms strainers and side-stream filtration are doing their job before the plate pack finds out they aren't.Open tower water · CIP return
- Fused-glass sight ports in the lineDirect view of the fluid entering or leaving the unit, at full process temperature and pressure.Exchanger inlet and outlet piping
- Verification after a rebuildConfirms the stream is no longer carrying whatever fouled the last plate pack.Post-turnaround · post-clean
- Canty's full analyzer and imaging range →
What's in the oil
CC Jensen · CJCOil coolers foul from the inside. Varnish lays down on the hottest surface in the system, and in a lube circuit that surface is usually the cooler — so the first symptom of oil degradation often shows up as lost cooling capacity rather than as an oil problem.
Offline filtration runs a side stream continuously while the machine keeps turning, so the cooler stays clean instead of being cleaned.
- Particle removal unitsCellulose depth filter inserts capture contaminants through the full filter mass rather than at the surface, taking out the fine wear particles that in-line filters pass. Typical improvement runs from ISO 22/20/17 to 15/13/10 within weeks.Lube oil coolers · gearbox coolers
- Water removal units and filter separatorsFree water and particles removed in one process, with systems capable of maintaining water content below 0.01% to help control corrosion and oil degradation.Turbine lube · gearbox · compressor
- Varnish removal unit (VRU)Takes out suspended and dissolved oxidation products and lowers the MPC index, on systems already showing deposit on valves, bearings and cooler surfaces.Turbine lube · oil cooler surfaces
- Acidity removal unitsReduce total acid number and stabilise oil chemistry before acid goes to work on cooler and radiator metallurgy.Transformer oil · turbine lube
Building or cooling a data center?
Liquid cooling distribution units, GigaBay air-cooled units, TCS and FWS loop cleanliness, and the rest of the facility scope live on a page of their own.
Send us the duty, or send us the nameplate.
New heat exchanger or existing unit — either one starts the same way. Flows, temperatures and fluids for a sizing; nameplate and plate count for a rebuild scope.
Contact Industrial Sales Solutionsmike.vogel@ind-sales.com
Faribault, Minnesota 55021
Serving Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and eastern Montana.