The influence of plate corrugation geometry on heat and mass transfer performance of plate heat exchangers for condensation of steam in the presence of air

•The condensation of steam from mixture with air in channels of plate heat exchanger is studied.•The local parameters of process investigated experimentally and with mathematical modelling.•The influence of plate corrugations angle, channel spacing and length investigated.•The corrugations angle change from 30° to 60° results in increased temperature drop about 2.5 times.•The corrugations angle, channel spacing and length recommended as main optimisation parameters. Processes of steam condensation in the presence of air, as non-condensable gas, was studied in experiments with the models of plate heat exchanger (PHE) channels formed by plates with corrugations of different geometry. Validity of the developed mathematical model for the calculation of local process parameters is confirmed, and it is used to facilitate the analysis of experimental results. Sets of experiments were performed on five samples modelling PHE channel main corrugated field. The corrugations angle to plate vertical axis in three experimental samples was 30°, 45° and 60° at the same corrugations’ height of 5 mm. Another two samples had corrugations height 7.5 mm and 10 mm at the same corrugations angle 60°. Various effects of plate sizes and geometrical parameters of corrugations on the performance of PHE as a condenser for steam–air mixture and local process parameters profiles are discussed. Presented analysis shows that the specified process conditions on temperature and pressure drop in PHE can be satisfied by varying corrugations angle and channel spacing at plates of different lengths. To maintain the same temperature program with a decrease of plates corrugation angle from 60° to 30° require the plates with a length bigger from 2 to 2.6 times, depending on specific process conditions. These plate parameters are recommended for use as variables in solving the problem of PHE plate geometry optimisation with the use of the proposed mathematical model.