Experimental measurement of the pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics of a crossflow heat exchanger in low-density flows

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NASA and other space agencies are currently planning the first human missions to Mars in the next 20 years. These missions will require much more power than current robotic missions, and so will require significant waste heat rejection capabilities to maintain steady state operations. Forced convection heat exchangers, particularly crossflow tube array compact heat exchangers, may offer significant volume- and mass-efficiency benefits over radiators for these applications. However, no experimentally validated correlations exist in the literature for the pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics of a forced-convection heat exchanger under the relevant dimensionless conditions which correspond to low (7-200) Reynolds number and moderate (0.0009-0.009) Knudsen number under axial and vortical flows. A staggered-tube crossflow heat exchanger has been constructed and its performance experimentally measured in a low-density wind tunnel. Data has been gathered in low-Reynolds, moderate-Knudsen conditions for both axial and vortical flows over a range of pressures and wall temperatures that is relevant to future Mars or high-altitude heat exchanger operation using both CO2 and air. The measured pressure drop exceeds what is predicted by correlations in the literature at very low (<75) Reynolds number while the Nusselt numbers were fairly well-predicted by existing correlations. A new correlation for pressure drop is presented for low-Reynolds, axial and vortical flow through a staggered circular tube array in crossflow.