Reducing the Flow Maldistribution in Heat Exchangers through a Novel Polymer Manifold: Numerical Evaluation

Mingkan Zhang (), Cheng-Min Yang, Kai Li and Kashif Nawaz
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Mingkan Zhang: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA
Cheng-Min Yang: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA
Kai Li: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA
Kashif Nawaz: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 20, 1-15

Abstract: The maldistribution of working fluid is one of the issues in heat exchangers that causes a reduction in performance of not only the heat exchanger but also the entire HVAC system. One of the methods to reduce such maldistribution is to improve manifold design to evenly distribute the flow. In the present work, an advanced maldistribution reduction manifold, which was based on a preliminary maldistribution reduction manifold, was designed to further improve the flow distribution in the heat exchanger. In the design, spiral baffles are used to create vortices in the tubes to regulate the flow in each tube. The design also keeps the tubes away from the manifold inlet to avoid direct flow from the inlet. Due to the complexity, the design of the advanced maldistribution reduction manifold is for AM only, which cannot be fabricated by traditional manufacturing. To evaluate the design, a computational fluid dynamic model is developed to study flow distribution in heat exchanger manifolds. The simulation results reveal that the relative standard deviation of the tubes in the advanced maldistribution reduction design is half of the preliminary maldistribution reduction design and about 1/20 of the reference design.

Keywords: maldistribution reduction; additive manufacturing; CFD; heat exchanger (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: 2023
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