Open Access

ARTICLE

STUDY ON THERMAL-HYDRAULIC PERFORMANCE OF THE PRINTED CIRCUIT HEAT EXCHANGER WITH AIRFOIL FINS FOR SUPERCRITICAL LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS

by

a School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an Shiyou University, Xi’an 710065, Shaanxi, China
b Wuhan Second Ship Design and Research Institute, Wuhan 430205, Hubei, China
∗ Corresponding Author. E-mail: lhtang97@163.com

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2022, 19, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.5098/hmt.19.18

Abstract

In this study, the thermal-hydraulic performance of eight different printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) configurations with supercritical liquefied natural gas as the working fluid are studied by a numerical method. Firstly, the thermal-hydraulic performance of the PCHE with different airfoil fins are investigated at different operating pressures, which indicate that the PCHE with airfoil fins has better thermal performance but worse hydraulic performance when it operates at higher pressure condition. Furthermore, the effects of different airfoil configurations on the thermal-hydraulic performance are analyzed in detail. The results show that asymmetric airfoils can provide better heat transfer performance than symmetrical airfoils. Finally, the overall heat transfer performance of PCHEs is evaluated by the identical mass flow rate criterion, identical pressure drop criterion and identical pumping power criterion, respectively. The results show that NACA 0024, NACA m18 and NACA 23021 airfoil fins exhibit the best comprehensive performance, respectively.

---

Keywords

---