Performance Analysis of Aluminum and Graphite Foam Heat Exchangers Under Countercurrent Arrangement
Författare
Summary, in English
Due to the increasing power requirement and the limited available space in the vehicles, a countercurrent heat exchanger (HEX) is proposed for the position on the roof of the vehicle compartment. Furthermore, a new material, graphite foam with high thermal conductivity and low density, is a potential material for HEXs in vehicles. In order to evaluate the performance of the graphite foam HEX, the CFD computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach is applied in a comparative study between the graphite foam and the aluminum HEXs under countercurrent flow condition. The analysis is conducted for the thermal performance (heat transfer coefficient) and the pressure loss. The simulation results show that the graphite foam HEX proves higher thermal performance than the aluminum HEX. However, due to the high pressure loss in the graphite foam HEX, the coefficient of performance in the graphite foam HEX is much lower than that of the aluminum HEX. A specific case study is carried out to evaluate the performance of graphite foam HEX as well. Useful recommendations are highlighted and provided to promote the development of the countercurrent flow HEXs in vehicles.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2014
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
730-737
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Heat Transfer Engineering
Volym
35
Issue
6-8
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Taylor & Francis
Ämne
- Energy Engineering
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1521-0537