Numerical study on novel airfoil corrugated plate heat exchanger: A comparison with commercial type and geometrical parameter analysis

Abstract

• Symmetric airfoil is used for PHE design for the first time. • CFD simulation is validated with a previous experimental. • New type of PHE has less pressure drop than commercial type while maintaining the same amount of heat transfer. • Effects of geometrical parameters of plate heat exchanger on performance was numerically studied. • Airfoil PHE is a potential alternative to commercial type. Utilizing an effective corrugation shape in plate heat exchanger (PHE) results in a substantial increase in thermal performance and a more compact design for these devices. This article presents, for the first time in the literature, an innovative PHE design that employs symmetric airfoil profile corrugation (airfoil corrugated PHE). As a consequence of the airfoil corrugation, unique flow channel is formed inside the PHE, which results in lower pressure drop while maintaining the equivalent heat transfer rate as the commonly used commercial sinusoidal PHE. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of the performance of airfoil corrugated PHE, essential parameters such as corrugated angle, corrugated pitch, mirror arrangement, and airfoil profile were examined over Reynolds number ranges of 4,600–8,400. Compared to sinusoidal corrugation, the innovative PHE has roughly 17% reduced pressure drop while keeping the same amount of heat transfer, as determined by a computational analysis of thermal and hydraulic parameters. 60° was the optimal corrugated angle, demonstrating a 10% increase in overall heat transfer coefficient (OHTC) compared to both 30° and 90°. In addition, the NACA 0030 airfoil profile obtained the highest thermal performance, with an OHTC that was roughly 12% greater than that of the NACA 0020 and NACA 0025 profiles. Nonetheless, as one of the geometrical parameters changes, the pressure drop is proportionate to the increase in heat transfer. NACA 0030 saw a pressure drop increase of around 33.7%, the greatest of any case. The geometrical parametric study indicates that the ideal configuration of the innovative PHE consists of NACA 0030 airfoil profile, chevron angle of 60° degrees, single mirror arrangement, and corrugated pitch of 3.14 mm, as shown by the maximum performance of evaluation criterion (PEC) value of 1.08.