Hello everyone,

I must build a detailed model of a crossflow heat exchanger, and I can't figure out a smart, systematic way to prioritize my meshing efforts.

Do you guys have some kind of strategy for doing that?

The model will deal with conduction in solid zones and in anisotropic porous media.

Thanks! /jb

The first thing I would always want to know, is what is the question that they want answered ...

Charles, I'm working on thermal shock simulation. I planned to divide my study into 2 main steps: Step 1: transient CFD simulation, to get a transient temperature map in all solid zones of the object of study (charge air cooler => solid zones = tanks, tubes, fins, turbulators). I was thinking of using porous media to represent the fins and turbulators, which properties would be calculated from detailed local CFD analyses and/or performance test. Step 2: FEA, where the temperature maps would be one of the inputs.

Garbage in, garbage out, that's why my first objective is to get an accurate temperature mapping.

Of course I already know the basic rules regarding mesh quality and mesh refinement, but due to hardware limitations, I can't afford to use a high quality grid everywhere. Another important thing is that my final goal is to develop a thermal shock simulation methodology, which should help us to do virtual prototyping. This means the mesh strategy should work on a wide range of designs and operating conditions.

I was thinking maybe someone here figured out some efficient strategy to define grid requirements, when starting from scratch on a method development project.

Thank you for reading. /jb

cross flow heat exchanger, but what type, compact, etc or a new design? the Fluent portal has some images for a shell and tube HX, as you understand, you can develop a strategy for a certain type, but for all possible configurations of HX then you are asking for general guide lines that, as you stated in your posting already know, so define the type of tour HX

automotive charge air cooler, air to air, aluminum, cross-flow, single pass, with core constituted of one layer of parallel tube/fin alternance, and the tubes being stuffed with turbulators (some kind of fins) all along the way.