The Thermal Hydraulic Performance of Wavy PCHE with Different Materials and Geometric Parameters

The printed circuited heat exchanger (PCHE) contain several different channel configurations, such as straight channel, zigzag channel and wavy channel. The wavy channel has better thermal performance than the straight channel and better hydraulic performance than the zigzag channel. This paper explores the thermal hydraulic performance of wavy channel PCHE. The numerical analysis of the PCHE in different materials and geometric parameters are conducted by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool. The materials applied in simulations involve Alloy617, Titanium Grade 3, Carlson 2205, UNS S30400 and Sandvik 253A. The results show that the materials have little effect on the thermal-hydraulic performance. The geometric parameters include channel degree varying from 10°to 50°, channel amplitude varying from 1mm to 5mm and the radium of hot/cold channel varying from 0.4mm to 2.0mm. It is found that the larger radium of hot channel results out the lower Nusselt number and lower fanning-friction factor while the higher radium of cold channel produces the higher Nusselt number and lower fanning-friction factor. The larger channel amplitude indicates the higher fanning-friction factor and lower Nusselt number. The larger channel degree indicates the higher fanning-friction factor, and higher Nusselt number