Investigation of heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics in metal-foam filled channels in a plate heat exchanger: A comparative experimental study

Abstract

An experiment was conducted on a single-phase system using water as the working fluid in a Gasket Plate Heat Exchanger (GPHE). The copper metal foam was employed on the corrugated profile in this experiment. The experiment was calibrated using iterative multiple linear regression analysis to find the coefficient of heat transfer on the hot water side for the given heat exchanger with a 60° corrugation angle. A comparative study was carried out between channels that were plain and modified with metal foam. The analysis focused on various factors, including the heat transfer coefficient, frictional pressure drop characteristics, pumping power, and volume goodness factor. The experiments were performed within a Reynolds number range of 200 to 1000, with the hot and cold water temperatures set at 60 °C and 30 °C, respectively. The experiments used copper metal foam with 50 pores per inch (PPI). The foam had a porosity ranging from 0.6 to 0.9, with a pore size of 1 mm. The Nusselt number for the modified GPHE was 1.97 times higher than that of the plain GPHE. Additionally, the frictional pressure drop for the modified heat exchanger was 1.89 times higher than that of the plain heat exchangers. The rate of frictional pressure drop increases at higher Reynolds numbers was higher than the heat transfer coefficient increase for both the plain and modified GPHE. The modified plate heat exchanger shows superior thermal performance compared to a plain GPHE at any given friction power conditions. Additionally, using metal foam-filled channels in contrast to plain corrugated plate channels suggests that the modified GPHE can achieve a more compact design for the same heat-duty application.