Numerical Study on Non-Uniform Temperature Distribution and Thermal Performance of Plate Heat Exchanger

Jeonggyun Ham, Gonghee Lee, Dong-wook Oh and Honghyun Cho
Additional contact information
Jeonggyun Ham: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Chosun University, 309 Pilmundaero, Dong-gu, Gwangju 61452, Korea
Gonghee Lee: Regulatory Assessment Department, Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, Daejeon 34142, Korea
Dong-wook Oh: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Chosun University, 309 Pilmundaero, Dong-gu, Gwangju 61452, Korea
Honghyun Cho: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Chosun University, 309 Pilmundaero, Dong-gu, Gwangju 61452, Korea

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 24, 1-18

Abstract: In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was performed to investigate the cause of the thermal stratification in the channel and the temperature non-uniformity of the plate heat exchanger. The flow velocity maldistribution of the channel and the merging parts caused temperature non-uniformity in the channel width direction. The non-uniformity of flow velocity and temperature in the channel is shown in Section 1 > Section 3 > Section 2 from the heat exchanger. The non-uniform temperature distribution in the channel caused channel stratification and non-uniform outlet temperature. Stratification occurred at the channel near the merging due to the flow rate non-uniformity in the channel. In particular, as the mass flow rate increased from 0.03 to 0.12 kg/s and the effectiveness increased from 0.436 to 0.615, the cold-side stratified volume decreased from 4.06 to 3.7 cm 3 , and the temperature difference between the stratified area and the outlet decreased from 1.21 K to 0.61 K. The increase in mass flow and the decrease in temperature difference between the cold and hot sides alleviated the non-uniformity of the outlet temperature due to the increase in effectiveness. Besides, as the inlet temperature difference between the cold and the hot side increases, the temperature non-uniformity at the outlet port is poor due to the increase in the stratified region at the channel, and the distance to obtain a uniform temperature in the outlet pipe increases as the temperature at the hot side increases.

Keywords: plate heat exchanger; velocity distribution; non-uniformity; thermal performance; stratification (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: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/24/8280/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/24/8280/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:24:p:8280-:d:698103

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().