Compact heat exchangers

Compact Heat Exchangers (CHEs) play an essential role in just about all energy conversion devices. Development of high-performance CHEs will lead to substantial promotion of environmental pollution prevention through energy conservation and recovery. With the approach of the 21st century there is going to be an accelerated need for high-performance CHEs in energy recovery, process heating and cooling, building heating and cooling applications, industrial heat recovery, and renewable energy conversion devices. Engineers have specified and used CHEs wherever applications permit. But as industry tries to reach energy efficiency levels never observed before, innovative applications emerge for CHEs that would result in tremendous dollar and energy savings. All this plus more environmentally friendly! The issue is certainly global and is attracting research and development efforts around the world. This is evident from the participation of research work from China, Korea, Sweden, and the United States at these CHE sessions. In the present sessions a collection of 6 papers present the progress on topics of current interest including modeling of CHEs, heat transfer enhancement techniques in CHEs, and practical applications in the industry. The ASME's Process Industries Division sponsored the sessions and we would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support. We are also indebted to all the authors and the reviewers for taking time and effort to make these sessions a success. We look forward to their participation in future technical symposiums and events. Acknowledgment is also due to the Heat Transfer Division for making it possible to publish the technical papers jointly.