Study of flow and heat transfer performance of plate-fin heat exchanger

Experimental and numerical studies were carried out on the flow and heat transfer characteristics of a plate-fin heat exchanger. The temperature and pressure fields in each section of the heat exchanger were obtained by means of numerical simulation. Some performance parameters of the plate-fin heat exchanger, such as Nusselt number Nu, surface heat transfer factor j, friction factor f and power factor α*, under various working conditions were obtained both numerically and experimentally. The variation curves of these parameters with Re are plotted. The results indicated that Nu and α* increase with increasing Re, while j and f decrease with increasing Re. The correlations of Nu, α* and f with Re were obtained for the design of plate-fin heat exchanger.