
Plate for heat exchangers
OUR CUSTOMER
Alfa Laval
Alfa Laval is a Swedish company and leading global provider of first-rate products in the areas of heat transfer, separation and fluid handling.
Alfa Laval is headquartered in Lund, Sweden and has subsidiary companies in over 35 countries around the world, including South Africa, Denmark, Italy, India, Japan, China, Netherlands, and the United States.

THE PROBLEM
Copper-brazed plate heat exchangers production
Brazed plate heat exchangers consist of coupled plates made of steel and copper, and are used in a wide range of applications including cooling, heating, evaporation and condensation.
They offer several advantages, such as excellent pressure resistance to thermal fatigue, maximum reliability and small footprint.
A production phase of this type of heat exchangers involves the coupling of the steel with the copper on each plate. Alfa Laval was looking for a partner who could take care of both the plate realization and the application of the copper layer.

OUR SOLUTION
A special coupled-blanking system
Thanks to our consolidated experience in the field of blanking and in the design and construction of molds for complex parts, we developed a special production process for the customer, which involves the blanking of steel and copper at the same time, using progressive / transfer mixed molds, where copper it is coupled integrally with the steel, in order to facilitate handling and assembly.
Once sheared, the plate for heat exchangers is washed and finally ready to be delivered to the customer for the subsequent coupling at 900° C. At that temperature, copper melts and sealing is obtained by capillarity on the entire surface of the plate.
This allows the customer to eliminate a production phase and related costs, and to obtain plates ready to be assembled and compliant with market specifications.
Athena is also testing the possibility of cleaning and washing components during blanking, in order to reduce waste water, polluting oils and further optimize the process.


I prodotti
Metal parts: steel brackets, steel flanges, and washers
Metal items in steel, stainless steel, aluminium, brass and many other alloys, obtained with punching systems. We can internally finish these components with mechanical processing, corrections, thermal treatments and welding.


Applications
Boilers, heat pumps, heating
Our expertise deployed

Our expertise
Metalworking services for the production of complex metal parts

Our expertise