Irreversibility analysis of a recuperative heater during undergoing the flowrate impulsive disturbance transient processes

The recuperative heater is widely used in the industrial production processes, and the irreversibility analysis on the heater during transients is scarce but necessary. Numerical method was adopted to model the recuperative heat exchanger to exhibit its dynamic behaviors during transient processes. The difference between the transient and stationary irreversibility can be called additional irreversibility. In this paper, the dynamic behaviors of the recuperative heater during transients are presented. With these thermal parameters, the irreversibility of a recuperative heater during hot and cold fluid flow rates impulsive disturbance transient processes was calculated and analyzed in detail. The calculation results show that: compared with steady-state corresponding value, the real-time irreversibility rate of the heater during transients is different. The total additional irreversibility values with impulsive disturbance in hot and cold fluid flow rates are obtained separately.