Numerical Simulation Of Corrugation Parameters Optimization Of Plate Heat Exchanger With Experimental Method

Plate heat exchanger has been widely used in different applications for several decades. This type of compact heat exchangers provides a number of advantages over other heat exchangers, such as high heat tranfser effectiveness, compactness, easy cleaning, etc. However, the necessarily raised friction pressure drop is often disadvantageous. The key purpose of this issue is to match "heat-resistance" thoroughly using uniform experimental method by numerical simulation. The main contents are as follows:(1)In order to study the influence of corrugation inclination angle, corrugation spacing and corrugation height on the heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop of a plate heat exchanger, a lot of experiments have been made with uniform design software Udsetup 3.00, numerical simulation software Fluent 6.3 and Gambit 2.4. The simulation results show that the corrugation inclination angle is not the only factor that affects the flow pattern, but other geometric parameters of corrugation can also affect the flow pattern. The corrugation height is more important than the corrugation spacing for the change of flow pattern from zig-zag flow to cross-flow in this experimental conditions. The heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop do not depend on the type of flow pattern entirely, but also on the corrugation inclination angle, the corrugation spacing, the hydraulic diameter, the velocity distribution and so on.(2)Performance evaluation has been made by employing (?)=Nu/(?)1/3 According to the results of optimization, the author proposes thatβ=60°, P=10.0mm, H=4.4mm is the optimal geometry in the fluid's velocity of 0.5m/s. The comprehensive performance parameter of this plate is much higher than that of the actual plate withβ= 65°,P=11mm, H= 3mm.(3)The influence of fluid's velocity on the heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop of a plate heat exchanger has been studied. The results show that both the heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop increase when the fluid's velocity increases, and it is favorable to increase the fluild's velocity for heat transfer enhancement. The study also finds that the flow pattern only depends on the plate geometry, having nothing to do with the fluid's velocity.