New and flexible process for joining heat exchangers

Important results from the project

The basic idea about the innovation is to transfer the energy to a brazing process in a new way, through direct electric heating of the product with contact elements. The main purpose of the project is to verify if the technology is feasible and scalable, and to identify possible future challenges. Within the project, a simplified demonstrator has been built, in order to evaluate and demonstrate the concept.

Expected long term effects

By transferring the brazing of heat exchanger plates from a slow batch furnace to a small flexible fixture heated by direct current, huge energy savings can be achieved as well as cost savings. At the same time, discrete part manufacturing in short heating cycles is made possible and flexible equipment. The project has demonstrated that it is possible to heat with the proposed method, but also that many technical challenges still remain, e.g. to achieve a uniform heat pattern.

Approach and implementation

The project has been carried out jointly by the partners in a few work packages. The power electronic unit is built on existing solutions, but has demanded some modifications. To design and build the test unit has been the dominating activity and the project has been completed with verification tests based on representative joining packages, including a demonstration of the technology. Due to the short project time in this pre-study, only verification in lab scale has been possible.