Research on one-dimensional digital twin algorithm of plate heat exchanger

Based on the differential idea, this article establishes two segmented algorithms which are the linear equations method and iterative method for solving the one-dimensional digital twin of the temperature field and pressure field of plate heat exchanger (PHE). The segmented algorithms are to consider the change of the physical properties of the fluid along the flow direction, which makes the solution of the temperature field and pressure field more accurate than that without segmentation. It can still get other important parameters besides temperature and is easy to converge with a few iterative steps. When the boundary conditions are known, it can accurately solve the heat transfer, wall temperature, convective heat transfer coefficient, temperature field and pressure field of fluid. Under six groups of test conditions, the heat exchange, temperature and pressure calculated by the two algorithms are compared with the commercial software Flownex, when the number of segments is 100, the average maximum error of each segment is not more than −0.39%, −0.97%, and 0.18%, respectively. To balance accuracy and calculation speed, this article also explores the impact of the number of segments on accuracy. It is found that when the number of segments increases to 10, the impact on the calculation accuracy can be ignored. Compared with Flownex, these two algorithms have smaller errors, and the solution speed of solving linear equations method is faster than that of iteration. It provides application value for emerging digital twin technology, data center chilled water system and other projects and industries that need to accurately control the outlet temperature and wall temperature of PHE.