A Numerical Study on the Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics of Plastic Plate Heat Exchanger

플라스틱 판형 열교환기의 유동 및 열전달 특성에 관한 수치해석적 연구

Four simulation models of plastic plate heat exchangers are designed and simulated. The flat plate type heat exchanger is designed as the reference model in order to evaluate how much thermal performance increases. The turbulence promoter type heat exchanger is fabricated with cylindrical-type vortex generators and rib-type turbulence promoters. The corrugate type is obtained from the conventional stainless steel compact heat exchangers, which are called the herringbone-type compact heat exchangers. The dimple type heat exchanger has a number of dimples on its surface. In this study, the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the plastic plate heat exchanger are investigated using numerical simulation and compared with experimental results. The flows are assumed as a three-dimensional, incompressible and turbulent model. The standard k-$\varepsilon$ model is used as the turbulent flow modeling, the SIMPLE algorithm is used to treat the coupling between pressure and velocity, and first order upwind scheme is used for discretization of momentum, turbulent and energy. The computational analysis and experimental results both show that the friction coefficient and Nu number is highest in the corrugate type.