Flow Structure Characterization and Performance Evaluation of Pin Fins Produced Using Cold Spray

Energy efficiency has become a growing concern in a world driven by a fossil fuel economy. Recuperated micro-gas-turbine systems offer the possibility of high efficiency power generation for low output power systems. To this end, increasing the performance while decreasing the cost, the weight and the volume of heat exchangers such as recuperators has become a critical research focus. Recent work done by Brayton Energy Canada (BEC) has renewed interest in Wire Mesh Heat Exchangers (WMHE) by introducing a new production method that uses cells of stacked wire mesh sheets that have a thick external shell deposited by cold spray. Fins are then machined in this external shell, creating a heat exchanger. \ud Net shaped pin fins were successfully deposited using Cold Gas Dynamic Spraying (CGDS or simply cold spray) as an additive manufacturing technique to replace the plate fin arrays currently used. This new development is envisioned to save costs while providing higher heat transfer efficiency than traditional fin arrays. Increasing the performance of such fin arrays would yield higher heat exchanger efficiencies and increase the total efficiency of the gas turbine system. \ud The present thesis provides a description of the research performed, as well as the results thereof, with regards to the performance of pin fin arrays produced using cold spray. A review of the relevant literature is performed to establish the motivation of this study and to describe the relevant work that has been performed by other authors in this respect. The research objectives are to evaluate the thermal and hydrodynamic performance of these fin arrays and relate those to the flow structures arising from fluid motion between these extended surfaces. Furthermore, the proposed approach and the experimental equipment that will be used are described in this work. The research objectives were successfully met, with the results obtained from this work presented in the form of peer-reviewed publications