Mathematical modeling of the solar regenerative heat exchanger under turbulent oscillating flow: Applications of renewable and sustainable energy and artificial heart

Abstract

Heat regenerators are mainly used in industry to return heat to the thermodynamic cycles and prevent heat loss. This could increase the efficiency of the cycle and reduce environmental damage. In this study, two heat regenerator staggered and in-line stacked plain-weave screen under some constraints such as same mass, same porosity of packed bed, and same heat transfer surface area to volume ratio was investigated by computational fluid dynamics method. In other words, the only difference between the regenerators was in the arrangement of the wires. The results show that the in-line regenerator not only increases the average efficiency up to 3.6% but also achieves a 36 Pa average lower pressure drop. However, the in-line model reaches the maximum thermal efficiency faster in reduced length< 11 and the staggered model reaches the maximum thermal efficiency faster in 11<reduced length< 20. In general, from this simulation, it can be seen that changes in the geometry of the heat regenerator can have a direct effect on thermal efficiency and pressure drop in the same mass and some geometrical consideration.