Thermal-hydraulic performance of a plate heat exchanger with grooved copper foam

Abstract

This study proposes a plate heat exchanger (PHE) partially filled with metal foam having checkered pattern grooves. The study presents new experimental data obtained from PHE with grooved copper foam that elucidates the effect of mass flux, copper foam groove width, and pore density on the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and pressure drop (ΔP). The testing is conducted with a water mass flux ranging from 120 to 320 kg/m2s, a groove width ranging from 2 to 6 mm, and a pore density of 30 pores per inch (PPI) and 50 PPI. The results demonstrate that HTC and ΔP increase as the copper foam groove width is reduced. Considering the impact of copper foam groove width on the filling rate, the HTC ratio increases significantly at a filling rate between 50 and 75%. Furthermore, an increase in pore density enhances HTC and ΔP. The plate heat exchanger inserted with copper foam (PHE_CF) provides the optimum thermal-hydraulic performance (TP). However, at a low Reynolds number, the results show that TP of PHE with grooved copper foam with a groove width of 2 mm is similar to PHE_CF. New correlations are also proposed to predict ΔP and HTC in the practical applications.