Discretized and experimental investigation of thermo-hydraulic behavior in a compact heat exchanger manufactured via SLM process

Abstract

The demand for a better understanding of the fluid thermal and hydrodynamic behavior along the heat exchanger makes it necessary to develop a discretized analysis. The temperature and pressure distributions from the local analysis allow the obtaining of mechanical and thermal stress fields, making the method advantageous in comparison to the conventional global analysis. This work developed a local thermo-hydraulic model for a compact heat exchanger manufactured via Selective Laser Melting (SLM) process. The cross-flow heat exchanger core, produced with American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) 316L, has 100 mm height, 100 mm width, 100 mm length, and a 2 mm channel diameter. The local steady-state models were compared with experimental data. The experiments were performed with water on both sides, using different temperatures for the hot side, and Reynolds numbers ranging from 1748 to 12247. The local analytical models have a good agreement, with 14% average errors for the thermal and hydrodynamic models. Besides, the impacts of channel diameter and surface roughness in the pressure drop were studied.