Heat exchanger headering arrangement

Claim 1

In a heat exchanger assembly including: a stacked array of heat exchange channel elements, wherein each channel element is bounded by thermally conductive pressure withholding walls, with a first fluid entrance opening at one end, a first fluid exit opening at the opposite end, and end sections each having a cross-section bounded by flat side walls and by edge walls comprising edge wall portions extending outwardly from said side walls and convergently with respect to each other, with the outermost ends of the edge wall portions being contiguous and coextensive with respect to one another to form a leak-tight edge wall and wherein adjacent channel elements in said array are stacked with their end section side walls in wall to wall contacting relationship and their end section edge walls in alignment to form a first entrance face at one end of said array and a first fluid exit face at the opposite end of said array, each said face having a perimeter defined by edge wall ends of the stacked channel elements and outermost side wall ends of the outermost channel elements in said array, and with said pressure withholding walls of adjacent channel elements in the interior of said array being disposed in spaced relationship with respect to each other for flow of a second fluid through said array in the space between said channel elements in heat exchange with said first fluid; an inlet header joined in flow communication with said first fluid entrance face for introduction of first fluid to said channel elements, and an outlet header joined in flow communication with said first fluid exit face for withdrawal of first fluid from said channel elements, each said header comprising the improvement of: sealing members extending along the end section edge walls of the channel elements at each side of the stacked array, each having a bearing surface with a generally corrugated contour of grooves and interposed ridges, with each of said grooves shaped so as to surround and abut the edge wall of a single channel element of said array with the interposed ridges extending inwardly and abutting the facing edge wall portions of adjacent channel elements, wherein the bearing surface of each sealing member is bonded to the abutted channel element edge walls associated therewith and has a length as measured parallel to the channel element longitudinal axes of at least 0.2 inch which is substantially greater than the thickness of said sealing member as measured perpendicular to the channel element longitudinal axes at a lower extremity of the grooves in said bearing surface thereof; and header tank means joined to said sealing members so as to leak-tightly enclose the associated face of the stacked array of heat exchange channel elements.