The high-pressure applications of traditional Gasket Plate Heat Exchangers (GPHE) are limited by the sheet material, gasket material and the design of the GPHE. The newly developed stainless steel grade UNS S82031 (EN 1.4637) is a duplex stainless steel grade with improved formability compared to other duplex stainless steel grades. It can be used in forming intensive applications, such as in typical chevron corrugated-plate heat exchangers. Compared to the standard austenitic stainless steel grades typically used, the new duplex stainless steel increases the application performance of GPHE applications, such as maintaining higher working pressures.

In this paper, the properties and material behavior of UNS S82031 is compared with the standard austenitic stainless steel UNS S30400 (EN 1.4301) in a pressure test at different working pressures. The pressure test is used to evaluate the performance of the selected material for a GPHE application. The experimental test results are compared with Finite Element (FE) simulation of the same pressure test, to achieve a deeper understanding of the results. The results show that plates made of UNS S82031 can withstand significantly higher working pressures than UNS S30400 for the same PHE-design, proving the new duplex stainless steel UNS S82031 is more suitable for high pressure GPHE applications.

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