A Three-Dimensional Thermo-hydrodynamic Simulation of Compact Cross-Flow Plate Heat Exchanger

Abstract

Yahya Sheikhnejad, Jorge Ferreira, Nelson Martins

This study is dedicated to the thermal analysis and thermo-hydrodynamic simulation of an air-to-air plate heat exchanger in order to solve its routine problem in industry. The compact type of cross-flow plate heat exchanger, in which corrugated plates pile up tightly and delicately brazed to each other, has been used in many situations and has many applications from food industries to petroleum and military. Routinely, after a certain lifespan, the brazed joints are detached and cause a mixture of hot and cold fluids as well as highly reduction of heat exchanger performance. This problem leads to increase the system maintenance significantly. Apart from the imposed cost and time for its maintenance, which is indeed a crucial problem? Finally, to have a better understanding, a threedimensional numerical investigation on thermo-hydrodynamic analysis of conjugate heat transfer was performed using computational fluid dynamics techniques. Forced convection heat transfer for fluid flow and conduction through solid material were considered as well. For simulation of steady state flow of Newtonian fluid, the governing equation was discredited by finite volume method and solved by the semi-implicit method for the pressure-linked equation. It was also found that both temperature and temperature gradient play an important role in this problem.

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