**Abstract**

Spiral plate heat exchangers are well suitable for handling fluids with features linked to fouling, high viscosities, fluids with suspended fragments of solids and process streams with tough heat transfer targets. Correlations to describe the thermal and hydraulic performance are a function of the geometrical configuration of the equipment. The present work shows procedures to design spiral plate heat exchangers as a function of the fluid arrangements, government flow, as well whether the thermal equipment is for condensing, cooling or heating duty. An additional study looking for determining the geometrical variables that allow to enhance and improve the thermal and hydraulic performance is presented. Moreover, computational fluid dynamics to validate the thermal and hydraulic method is performed.

**Keywords:** design, thermal and hydraulic performance, spiral plate heat exchanger, single- and two-phase flow, computational fluid dynamics
