The Effect of Flow Channel Geometry on Thermomechanical Performance of Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE)
Name
v004t14a075-icone28-65609.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.48 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
8c47629dc024ced897965e27c95045be
Author(s)
Jiragoontansiri, Witiwat
Woravisuttsarakul, Teerapat
Sae-pueng, Rinrada
Sukjai, Yanin
Shirvan, Koroush
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Volume 4: Student Paper Competition
Publisher
ASME International
Citation
Jiragoontansiri, Witiwat, Woravisuttsarakul, Teerapat, Sae-pueng, Rinrada, Sukjai, Yanin and Shirvan, Koroush. 2021. "The Effect of Flow Channel Geometry on Thermomechanical Performance of Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE)." Volume 4: Student Paper Competition.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Abstract
Climate change has garnered attention of communities world-wide. The carbon-free thermal energy systems such as nuclear benefit from compact and highly efficient heat exchanger technologies. The plate-type compact heat exchangers such as the Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE) holds promise to fulfil these requirements. The chemical etching and diffusion bonding technology expands PCHE application for several different nuclear technologies. This work presents the thermal-hydraulic and structural analysis of PCHE for molten salt application with thermal energy storage. In this study, three different types of geometry are chosen for the analysis i.e., the zigzag channel type, the airfoil fin type, and the slotted fin type. For the working fluid, FLiBe (Li2BeF4) and Solar Salt (60% NaNO3 and 40% KNO3) are chosen for hot side and cold side respectively. Titanium grade 5 is chosen as the structural material. The study is conducted by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis. The thermomechanical behavior including pressure drop, fluid temperature, velocity profile, stress, and deformation of the flow channel were considered in this work. From the results, the zigzag channel geometry gives the best thermal hydraulic performance in terms of heat transfer and pressure drop. The structural analysis shows that the stress intensity of all three geometries can exceed the maximum allowable stress (MAS) under certain conditions. Overall, the zigzag channel PCHE is still the most suitable geometry for this application.
Climate change has garnered attention of communities world-wide. The carbon-free thermal energy systems such as nuclear benefit from compact and highly efficient heat exchanger technologies. The plate-type compact heat exchangers such as the Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE) holds promise to fulfil these requirements. The chemical etching and diffusion bonding technology expands PCHE application for several different nuclear technologies. This work presents the thermal-hydraulic and structural analysis of PCHE for molten salt application with thermal energy storage. In this study, three different types of geometry are chosen for the analysis i.e., the zigzag channel type, the airfoil fin type, and the slotted fin type. For the working fluid, FLiBe (Li2BeF4) and Solar Salt (60% NaNO3 and 40% KNO3) are chosen for hot side and cold side respectively. Titanium grade 5 is chosen as the structural material. The study is conducted by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis. The thermomechanical behavior including pressure drop, fluid temperature, velocity profile, stress, and deformation of the flow channel were considered in this work. From the results, the zigzag channel geometry gives the best thermal hydraulic performance in terms of heat transfer and pressure drop. The structural analysis shows that the stress intensity of all three geometries can exceed the maximum allowable stress (MAS) under certain conditions. Overall, the zigzag channel PCHE is still the most suitable geometry for this application.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1115/ICONE28-65609
