Case study: light maintenance for industrial snacking

A company active in the snacking industry has trusted Barriquand to renew an installation with tubular heat exchangers in one of its production sites located in France. His goals? Achieving similar thermal performance with an easier maintenance and increased resistance to corrosion.

In the process of this client, heat exchangers are involved for washing potato slices. This application is actually recovering energy on the output wash water, also known as “white water”. The heat recovered is used to preheat the inlet clean water for the next wash and relieves the energy amount required by the process. This type of plant has a very favorable return on investment through savings of steam produced for preheating the white water.

Fouling and corrosion
The existing plant consisted of tubular heat exchangers with heat-insulated steel shell operating at a flow rate of 150 m3/h. Due to high humidity, they were subjected to corrosion and heavy fouling, which is very typical of those vegetable washing water applications (Here starch and potato chips cause deposits on the tubes wall).
The company proceeded to two cleanings per week, i.e. a pretty standard frequency for this type of application but which causes important downtimes and therefore a significant productivity loss.

Maximize productivity and simplify maintenance
For our client, the replacement of the facility had to meet three major targets: maintain the thermal performance, reduce both fouling and maintenance requirements. To meet its demand to retain tubular heat exchangers, Barriquand proposed installing a stainless steel heat exchanger (to limit corrosion) as well as increasing the fluid passage section (to decrease deposits).
The new heat exchangers have also been equipped with hinged flat access covers fitted with tilting bolts to facilitate all maintenance operations.

Equal performance, less constraints
Our client has retained the thermal efficiency of its implementation but significantly reduced the frequency and complexity of cleaning its heat exchangers. The renewal of installation enabled him to limit his downtime thus improve productivity and ensuring significant energy savings.

To go even further
Finally, note that if the tubular exchangers are mostly installed on this type of application,PLATULAR® welded plate heat exchanger also offers excellent performances on loaded or complex fluids, as is the case here. Moreover, they are very easy to clean heat exchangers (Chemical cleaning without opening the equipment, without gaskets, hinged access covers…).

A need of heat exchanger for food processing? Please contact us!