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An experimental study on single phase convection heat transfer and pressure drop in two brazed plate heat exchangers with different chevron shapes and hydraulic diameters

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Abstract

An experimental study on heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics was performed at single phase flow in two Brazed plate heat exchangers (BPHEs) with different geometries. The corrugation density of one of the BPHE (Type II) was two times as high as that of the other BPHE (Type I). The hydraulic diameter of the type II BPHE was 2.13 mm, which was 38 % smaller than that of the type I BPHE. Also, the cross section shape of the flow channels for the type II BPHE was different from that for conventional BPHEs due to the unusual corrugation patterns and brazing points. The experimental conditions for temperatures were varied from 4.6 °C to 49.1 °C, and for mass flow rates were changed from 0.07 kg/s to 1.24 kg/s. The measured results showed that pressure drop in the type II BPHE was about 110 % higher than that in the type I BPHE. Nu of the type II was higher than that of the type I BPHE and the enhancement became larger with the increase of Re at the ranges above 800. New correlations for f F and Nu were proposed by this study and their prediction accuracy could be improved by considering the surface enlargement factor in the correlations. The performance evaluation of the two BPHEs was performed by (j/f 1/3 F ) which represented the ratio of heat transfer and pressure drop performance. Also, a new parameter, the capacity compactness of PHE, was proposed and it presented the PHE capacity per unit volume and unit log mean temperature difference. The comparison showed that the two BPHEs had similar values of the (j/f 1/3 F ), whereas they had significantly different values of the capacity compactness. The capacity compactness of the type II BPHE was 1.5 times higher than that for the type I BPHE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul, 01811, Korea

    Man Bae Kim

  2. Department of Mechanical System Design Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul, 01811, Korea

    Chang Yong Park

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  1. Man Bae Kim
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Correspondence to Chang Yong Park.

Additional information

Recommended by Associate Editor Seong Hyuk Lee

Man Bae Kim received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Department of Mechanical System Design Engineering at Seoul National University of Science and Technology in 2014 and 2016, respectively. His research interests are heat transfer phenomena and heat exchangers.

Chang Yong Park is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical System Design Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Korea University 1998 and 2000, respectively. Prof. Park received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006. His research interests are phase change phenomena, microscale heat transfer, heat exchangers, energy systems and HVAC&R systems.

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Kim, M.B., Park, C.Y. An experimental study on single phase convection heat transfer and pressure drop in two brazed plate heat exchangers with different chevron shapes and hydraulic diameters. J Mech Sci Technol 31, 2559–2571 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-017-0454-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-017-0454-0

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