Numerical investigation of gyroid heat exchanger

Abstract

A novel cylindrical gyroid surface-based tube is designed to investigate fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics numerically. The simulations are carried out using finite volume based CFD software Ansys Fluent. The numerical validation is performed to verify the robustness of the solver and grid independence study are also carried out to compute the simulations using optimum mesh. The heat exchanger (HX) tubes with gyroid surfaces are manufactured using additive manufacturing and a crossflow HX is fabricated with a bank of gyroid tubes where the experiments were conducted. The numerical results of the Realizable k-ε turbulence model with enhanced wall treatment is validated with in-house experimental data. The thermal performance of the gyroid tube HX is also compared with a conventional circular tube (CCT). Parametric analysis is also carried out by varying the gyroid design parameter and an optimum HX design is proposed. The results show that due to larger surface area and enhanced fluid mixing, the gyroid tube-based HXs show better thermal performance compared to CCT-based HX.