Patent ID: 6360561
Filing Date: 2002-03-26
Classification: F25J,F28D,F28F,Y10S

Abstract:
A heat exchanger for heating a stream of liquid oxygen at a pressure of at least about 30 bar by indirect heat exchange against a heat exchange fluid, said heat exchanger comprising:a body having a plurality of spaced layers of transversely extending laterally spaced channels defined by ferrous alloy walls with each layer being in thermal contact with at least one other layer; oxygen inlet means for introducing pumped liquid oxygen at a pressure of at least about 30 bar into the channels of at least one layer, hereafter â€œoxygen layersâ€ ; oxygen outlet means for removing heated oxygen from said channels of the oxygen layers; heat exchange fluid inlet means for introducing heat exchange fluid into the channels of at least one layer, hereafter â€œheat exchange layersâ€ , adjacent to an oxygen layer and in thermal contact therewith; heat exchange fluid outlet means for removing cooled heat exchange fluid from said channels of the heat exchange layers; wherein the walls between adjacent channels in each oxygen layer and the walls between said channels in the oxygen layer and channels in an adjacent layer each have a cross-section, in a plane perpendicular to the direction of flow through the adjacent channels, having a thickness which at its narrowest is at least about 10% of the combined hydraulic mean diameters of the two adjacent channels and on average is at least about 15% of said combined hydraulic mean diameters, and the ratio of cross-sectional area, in said plane, of the mass of the ferrous alloy walls defining the channels in each oxygen layer to the cross-sectional area of the channels in that layer is no less than about 0.7.