how to analyze heat exchanger
 

Hi all, I'm going to analyze a plated-fin fuel-oil cooler which is a heat exchanger for fuel and oil. Does anybody know some easy method to do it? I cannot use the porous material method because lack of some necessary data . The fin thickness is very small (about 0.006") compared to the fin pitch. If I mesh it , the mesh size will be very very large! Does anybody can give me some hints? Thanks! Bengonia.Boom8

Re: how to analyze heat exchanger
 

Resolving the fin and plates is almost a impossible idea for the full heat-exchanger. Porosity modeling approach is the reasonable approach to model the overall pressure drop and heat transfer in tube bundle. You can generate the required data (basically pressure drop curve etc) by sub-modeling approach in CFD, if data is not available otherwise. Basically model flow between one fin thickness and generate the characteristics through CFD. Co-orelations can also be used to arrive at this basic data, if its available for your fpi, type of fin etc.

Thanks for your hint.
 

Hi Jitendra , thanks, you show me the way.

Re: Thanks for your hint.
 

Hi,

I might add that it depends on what you are trying to learn from the modelling. Are you trying to include the heat exhanger in a model of a larger system? In that case then yes, you almost certainly will have to model the heat exchanger in terms of gross performance correlations.

Alternately, if you are interested in the detailed flow inside the heat exchanger then you must model the internal detail of the HE.

Glenn Horrocks

Re: Thanks for your hint.
 

Hi Glenn Horrocks , thanks, I'm going to compare the HE effectiveness for two different kinds of fuel in the fuel-oil cooler (same oil types). So I think I need to take part of the HE as my domain to realize the heat transfer mechanism.