Numerical and Experimental Analysis of Various Fluid flow Visualization in Heat Exchanger

Published on 04 Mar 2021. Written by Sankarsan Mohanty

Heat Exchangers are widely used in most engineering fields, such as the process, power, automotive, cryogenics, refrigeration, air conditioning, heat recovery, manufacturing industries, etc. So, a lot of research is going on to develop and improve heat exchanger effectiveness. In this project, you are going to Analyze fluid flow in a heat exchanger using an analysis software and then compare the result data with the experimental result of a Heat Exchanger setup.

Heat Exchangers are devices that facilitate the exchange of heat between two fluids that are at different temperatures while keeping them from mixing with each other. It differs from the mixing chamber that it does not allow two fluids to mix, they are separated by a wall. Heat transfer in heat Exchangers involves convection in each fluid and conduction through the wall separating the two fluids. Heat transfer rate depends on the temperature differences between the two fluids. The objective is to study about heat transfer rate, the velocity of flow and temperature fields inside the tube using CFD and compare the result with an experimental setup of Heat Exchanger.

Project Description:

Heat Exchanger: A Heat Exchanger is a mechanical device which transfers heat between two or more fluid. This device is generally used in the refrigerator, power plants, air conditioners etc. to reduce the temperature of the working fluid.
CFD: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is the science of predicting fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, chemical reactions, and related phenomena using numerical methods. It produces a fairly accurate result with ease and convenience. You will use Ansys software for CFD analysis purpose.

Project Implementation:

Built an experimental setup of Heat Exchanger to carry out the experiment and collect relevant data. Choose cross flow Heat Exchanger for better efficiency.
Then chose what are the fluids you want to use in your project. You can go for air, water, oil etc.
Perform experiment using any two fluid and take a reading of temperature change and pressure change and use those data to calculate the velocity of flow and heat transfer rate.
Now, Use Acusolve or Ansys software to perform the numerical solution of the heat exchanger and compare the numerical result with the experiment one.
Calculate Heat Exchanger effectiveness for both the processes, do necessary changes to maximize the effectiveness.

Project Brief: Effectiveness of Heat Exchanger can be increased by optimizing velocity of flow, contact area and temperature of the fluid which is used for cooling purpose.

Software Requirements:

ANSYS: This software is popularly used in mechanical engineering for simulation purpose.
Acusolve: This is another simulation software made by Altair engineering for simulation. This software uses Finite Element analysis to perform all the simulation.
MiniPlot: You need plotting software such as Gnuplot, Miniplot or Uniplot to plot the result data and study the solution.

Kit required to develop Numerical and Experimental Analysis of Various Fluid flow Visualization in Heat Exchanger:

Technologies you will learn by working on Numerical and Experimental Analysis of Various Fluid flow Visualization in Heat Exchanger:

Numerical and Experimental Analysis of Various Fluid flow Visualization in Heat Exchanger

Project Description:

Project Implementation:

Software Requirements:

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