Numerical and experimental investigation of additively manufactured shell-lattice copper heat exchanger

Abstract

Triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) shell lattices have superior heat transfer properties due to their staggered channels. Based on these structures, a series of TPMS heat exchangers (HEs) are fabricated and investigated. However, the existing research is mainly limited to the performance investigation of HEs based on low-thermal-conductivity materials or the simulation study of the representative parts. In this study, we successfully fabricated a pure copper TPMS HE and performed a comprehensive numerical analysis. Three HEs, including Copper TPMS, SS316L TPMS, and SS316L plate were studied and compared to reveal the mechanism of their performance differences. Numerical analysis showed that TPMS HEs owned more uniform temperature and velocity fields than plate HE. The calculated heat-exchange effectiveness of the copper TPMS HE is about 58%–96% higher than that of SS316L plate HE, while the measured value of that of SS316L TPMS HE is about 38%–48% more than that of SS316L plate HE, respectively. The convective heat-transfer coefficient of copper TPMS HE is approximately 2.16–2.69 times that of SS316L plate HE and 1.17–1.33 times that of SS316L TPMS HE. The volume goodness factors of copper TPMS and SS316L TPMS HEs are about 1.49–1.87 and 1.2–1.41 times that of SS316L plate HE, respectively. The volumetric heat-transfer coefficient of copper TPMS HE is much better than that of metal plate HE and approximately 18–25 times that of the polymer TPMS HEs. This study indicates that the pure copper TPMS HE is a good candidate for next-generation HEs.