Sobol sensitivity analysis for governing variables in design of a plate-fin heat exchanger with serrated fins

Sobol sensitivity analysis can quantify the impact of input parameters’ variations on the performance of plate-fin heat exchanger to guide the selection of input variables during design procedure. In this paper, the Reynolds number Re, fin height h, fin space s, fin thickness t and interrupted length l are considered as five input parameters, while exchanger volume, exchanger material content, heat flow rate and pressure drop with different constraints are taken as the design objectives. Moreover, to study the impact of Prandtl number on input parameters, the Sobol sensitivity indices of five parameters are compared for air and water. The results show that the Reynolds number Re and fin space s are the two main factors that affect the performance of plate fin heat exchanger. As the heat exchanger size limited, a smaller fin thickness t is selectable. Compared with air, the interrupted length l should be selected a smaller value for water. Guidance about the fin surface selection is given. Sobol sensitivity analysis methods can be performed to detect the importance of parameters in various complex engineering applications. And compared with other optimization algorithms, this method is simple to implement.