Study on the heat transfer and pressure drop of printed circuit heat exchanger

Printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) is one of the promising candidates in the high-temperature energy utilization and recovery fields, such as Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR). In the present paper, the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of a typical PCHE with a Zigzag channel are numerically studied. The results indicate that the heat transfer and pressure drop performances could be predicted well by the laminar flow model. The friction factor of Zigzag channel is higher than that of semicircle channel. When the inlet temperature on both sides is constant, the friction factor and heat transfer effectiveness decrease with the increase of mass flow rates. When the mass flow rate on both sides and the inlet temperature on cold side are constant, the friction factor decreases linearly and the heat transfer effectiveness increases with the increase of the inlet temperature on hot side.