A heat exchanger model that includes axial conduction, parasitic heat loads, and property variations

Abstract

High performance heat exchangers are a critical component in many cryogenic systems and the performance of these devices is typically very sensitive to axial conduction, property variations, and parasitic heat losses to the environment. This paper presents a numerical model of a heat exchanger in which these effects are explicitly modeled. The governing equations are derived, nondimensionalized, discretized, and solved on an exponentially distributed grid. The resulting numerical model is simple to implement and computationally efficient and can therefore easily be integrated into complex system models. The numerical model is validated against analytical solutions in the appropriate limits and then used to investigate the effect of heat exchanger end conditions (adiabatic vs fixed temperature) and radiation parasitics. The numerical model, which explicitly considers the combined effect of several loss mechanisms as they interact, is compared to simple models that consider these effects separately. Finally, the model is applied to an example heat exchanger core under a specific set of operating conditions in order to demonstrate its utility. This numerical model may also be used to examine the effect of property variations including temperature driven changes in specific heat capacity, metal conductivity, parasitic heat load, and heat transfer coefficients and is therefore useful in the design of a variety of cryogenic system components including counter- and parallel-flow heat exchangers for gas liquefaction, mixed-gas refrigeration, and reverse Brayton systems.