Performance Evaluation of Wire Cloth Micro Heat Exchangers

Hannes Fugmann, Sebastian Martens, Richard Balzer, Martin Brenner, Lena Schnabel and Carsten Mehring
Additional contact information
Hannes Fugmann: Fraunhofer ISE—Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
Sebastian Martens: IMVT—Institute of Mechanical Process Engineering, University of Stuttgart, Böblinger Str. 72, 70199 Stuttgart, Germany
Richard Balzer: Spörl KG Präzisionsdrahtweberei, Staudenweg 13, 72517 Sigmaringendorf, Germany
Martin Brenner: MAHLE International GmbH, Heilbronner Str. 393-397, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany
Lena Schnabel: Fraunhofer ISE—Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
Carsten Mehring: IMVT—Institute of Mechanical Process Engineering, University of Stuttgart, Böblinger Str. 72, 70199 Stuttgart, Germany

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to validate a thermal-hydraulic simulation model for a new type of heat exchanger for mass, volume, and coolant/refrigerant charge reduction. The new heat exchanger consists of tubes with diameters in the range of 1 m m and wires in the range of 100 m , woven together to form a 200 × 200 × 80 m m 3 wire cloth heat exchanger. Performance of the heat exchanger has been experimentally evaluated using water as inner and air as outer heat transfer medium. A computational thermal and fluid dynamic model has been implemented in OpenFOAM ® . The model allows variation of geometry and operating conditions. The validation of the model is based on one single geometry with an opaque fabric and air-side velocities between 1 and 7 m / s . The simulated and measured pressure drops are found to be in good agreement with a relative difference of less than 16%. For the investigated cases, the effective heat transfer coefficients are in very good agreement (less than 5%) when adapting the contact resistance between tubes and wires. The numerical model describes the fluid flow and heat transfer of the tested heat exchanger with adequate precision and can be used for future wire cloth heat exchanger dimensioning for a variety of applications.

Keywords: heat exchanger; performance evaluation; micro tubes; wire structure; computational fluid dynamics; heat transfer enhancement; dimensioning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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