Vitherm plates are pressed in a single stroke by a large tonnage hydraulic press; this enables compliance to extremely tight tolerances allowing large plate packs to be in perfect alignment in the assembled plate heat exchanger. Progressive or multiple stroke pressings cannot match the tight tolerance of single stroke pressings. 

The varied chevron angles allow maximum turbelance and velocity for a given pressure drop giving high heat transfer rates; which means the units do not have to be opened as often for cleaning, disrupting production and the heat transfer.

The half cylindrical gasket design allows for several operations; the large cross sectional gasket area has the ability to contain the gasket within the gasket groove under high pressure operating conditions. Adequate room for compression means significantly lower replacement costs due to the longer life and reusability of the gaskets.

The gasketed plate and frame heat exchanger consists of a plate pack of a calculated number of embossed plates with perimeter gaskets clamped securely with tie rods between two thick carbon steel plates. The plates have openings at the corner to direct process and service fluid through the interplate passage ways; fluids flow alternately between plates in order to achieve high efficiency heat transfer. The thin fluid flow and high turbelence created by Vitherm's proprietary embossed plate patterns produce low pressure drops and extremely high heat transfer coefficients.