Hydraulic and Thermal Simulations of a Cross-Corrugated Plate Heat Exchanger Unitary Cell

Abstract

Simulations have been carried out by means of computational fluid dynamics for turbulent convective heat transfer in a cross-corrugated plate pattern heat exchanger unitary cell at a Reynolds number of 4930. Chen's high-Reynolds-number k-ϵ model, the Reynolds stress model (RSM), Suga's low-Reynolds-number k-ϵ model, and the V2F model were used. The predicted hydraulic and thermal behaviors using these models have been compared and explained. The simulations showed that the interaction between the upper flow and lower flow in the cell creates a shear zone at their interface with a rotating motion and as a consequence the heat transfer is enhanced. This phenomenon was captured best by the V2F model, which predicted the highest Nusselt number and friction factor. Chen's k-ϵ model provided results similar to the RSM. The fact that the RSM was instable and required more computational power makes it less interesting for further use in similar studies. It was also found rewarding to generate multiblock all-hexahedral grids to resolve the existing thermal and hydraulic phenomena in the domain.