Expanded microchannel heat exchanger: Non-destructive evaluation

Michigan Tech's Open Sustainability Technology Lab.

Wanted: Students to make a distributed future with solar-powered open-source 3-D printing and recycling.
Contact Dr. Joshua Pearce - Apply here
 MOST: Projects & Publications, Methods, Lit. reviews, People, Sponsors, News
Updates: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube

Pearce Publications: Energy Conservation • Energy Policy • Industrial Symbiosis • Life Cycle Analysis • Materials Science • Open Source • Photovoltaic Systems • Solar Cells • Sustainable Development • Sustainability Education

Source

Abstract

Recent theoretical developments in expanded microchannel polymer-based heat exchangers were promising, but the initial experiments underperformed simple theory. In order to understand this discrepancy, this paper introduces a nondestructive methodology for characterizing polymer heat exchangers. A computerized tomography (X-ray) scan was performed to diagnose the problem. The method was tested on the expanded microchannel polymer heat exchanger to determine the variations in geometry between the theoretical and experimental heat exchanger. Channels were found to have variable heights causing flow maldistribution. The results are discussed to guide further technological development of this approach to heat exchanger design and fabrication and lays the groundwork for an advanced discretized modeling.


Keywords

heat exchanger; laser welding; microchannel; optimization;

See Also

Manufacturing the HX with an open source laser welding system

This article is issued from Appropedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.