Performance characteristics of a plate fin heat exchanger

Abstract

This study presents the numerical simulation results for thermal performance analysis, flow visualization, and heat transfer characteristic in a plate fin heat exchanger (PFHE). Rectangular and perforated baffles are used to increase the heat transfer rates. The performances of a plate fin with and without baffles show effective comparison in cooling. There is a significant comparison in efficiency between the inserted baffles with perforation and without perforation in the heat exchangers. It concerns three cases (only a channel without baffle, with rectangular baffle and baffles with slot type perforation). A commercial CFD (computational fluid dynamics) program is used for the numerical simulation. Mesh independence test is carried out to check the accuracy of results. Validation of numerical results with the available experimental data from the literature shows satisfactorily. The flow field has been studied for different Reynolds number for the range 500 to 1800 to validate the results. Results were obtained finally in terms of generalized Reynolds number for the range 2 to 20. It increases the heat transfer substantially but with an additional energy cost. Nusselt number is increased 59% to case 2 from case 1 and 77.3% to case 3 from case 2. On the other hand pressure drop is highly increased at case 2 due to rectangular baffles which is 34.3% greater than case 1 and due to slot type perforation in case 3, pressure drop is decreased by 5.8% based on generalized Reynolds number. So that from thermodynamic point of view this numerical simulation is very much important.