• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.24-31
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• 2018

The mechanical design procedure is studied for the PCHE(printed circuit heat exchanger) with electrochemical etched flow channels. The effective heat transfer plates of PCHE are assembled by diffusion bonding to make a module. PCHE is widely used for industrial applications due to its compactness, cost efficiency, and serviceability at high pressure and/or temperature conditions. The limitations and technical barriers of PCHE are investigated for application to nuclear components. Rules for design and fabrication of PCHE are specified in ASME Section VIII but not in ASME Section III of nuclear components. Therefore, the calculation procedure of key dimensions of PCHE is defined based on ASME section VIII. The effective heat transfer region of PCHE is defined by several key dimensions such as the flow channel radius, edge width, wall thickness, and ridge width. The mechanical design procedure of key dimensions was incorporated into a program for easy use in the PCHE design. The effect of assumptions used in the key dimension calculation on stress values is numerically investigated. A comparative analysis is done by comparing finite element analysis results for the semi-circular flow channels with the formula based sizing calculation assuming rectangular cross sections.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.1786-1795
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• 2021

Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE) is a widely used heat exchanger in the supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂) Brayton cycle because it can work under high temperature and pressure, and has been a hot topic in Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) projects for use as recuperators and condensers. Most previous studies focused on channel structures or shapes. However, no clear advancement has so far been seen in the allover size of the PCHE. In this paper, we proposed an optimal size of the PCHE with a fixed volume. Two boundary conditions of PCHE were simulated, respectively. When the volume of PCHE was fixed, the heat transfer rate and pressure loss were picked as the optimization objectives. The Pareto front was obtained by the Multi-objective optimization procedure. We got the optimized number of PCHE channels under two different boundary conditions from the Pareto front. The comprehensive performance can be increased by 5.3% while holding in the same volume. The numerical results from this study can be used to improve the design of PCHE with straight channels.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.9
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• pp.1137-1143
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• 2011

The IHX (intermediate heat exchanger) of a VHTR (very high-temperature reactor) is a core component that transfers the high heat generated by the VHTR at $950^{\circ}C$ to a hydrogen production plant. Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute manufactured a small-scale prototype of a PCHE (printed circuit heat exchanger) that was being considered as a candidate for the IHX. In this study, as a part of high-temperature structural integrity evaluation of the small-scale PCHE prototype, we carried out high-temperature structural analysis modeling and macroscopic thermal and elastic structural analysis for the small-scale PCHE prototype under small-scale gas-loop test conditions. The modeling and analysis were performed as a precedent study prior to the performance test in the small-scale gas loop. The results obtained in this study will be compared with the test results for the small-scale PCHE. Moreover, these results will be used in the design of a medium-scale PCHE prototype.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.1499-1506
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• 2011

The IHX (intermediate heat exchanger) is a key component of nuclear hydrogen systems for the production of massive amounts hydrogen. The IHX transfers the $950^{\circ}C$ heat generated by the VHTR (very high temperature reactor) to a hydrogen production plant. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute established a small-scale gas loop to test the performance of key VHTR components and manufactured a small-scale PCHE (printed circuit heat exchanger) prototype, which is being considered as a candidate for the IHX, for testing in the small-scale gas loop. In this study, as a part of the high-temperature structural integrity evaluation of the small-scale PCHE prototype, we carried out high-temperature structural analysis modeling and macroscopic thermal and structural analysis for the small-scale PCHE prototype under the small-scale gas loop test conditions. This analysis serves as a precedent study to scheduled PCHE performance test in the small-scale gas loop. The results obtained in this study will be compared with the test results for the small-scale PCHE and then used to design the medium-scale PCHE prototype.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.1147-1152
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• 2009

The objectives of this paper are to study the characteristics of heat transfer and pressure drop of the zigzag channel PCHE using diffusion bonding technology by numerical analysis. PCHE of five types are designed, which are zigzag channel angle $180^{\circ}$, $160^{\circ}$, $140^{\circ}$, $120^{\circ}$ and $100^{\circ}$. The zigzag PCHE was numerically investigated for Reynolds number in a range of $150{\sim}800$. The temperatures of the hot side were performed at $80^{\circ}C$ while that of the cold side was conducted at $20^{\circ}C$. The results show that the performance of heat transfer rate for zigzag channel $100^{\circ}$ increases about 11.5% compared to that of zigzag channel $180^{\circ}$. On the other hand, the performance of pressure drop for zigzag channel $100^{\circ}$ is remarkably higher than that of zigzag channel $180^{\circ}$, about 1.4 times.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.215-220
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• 2008

A microchannel PCHE is manufactured by the two technologies of micro photo-etching and diffusion bonding. In this paper, heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics by applying various configuration for the flow channel in the microchannel PCHE is experimentally investigated. The flow channel configurations are designed three types such as straight, wavy and offset strip channels. The performance experiment of each configuration is performed for Reynolds numbers in ranges of $100{\sim}700$ under various flow conditions for the hot side and the Reynolds number of cold side is fixed at 350. The inlet temperatures of the hot side and cold side are conducted as $40^{\circ}C$ and $20^{\circ}C$, respectively. The heat transfer performance of wavy channel, which was similar to that of offset strip channel, was much higher than that of straight channel. The effectiveness of wavy channel and offset strip channel was evaluated as about $0.5{\sim}0.9$. The pressure drop of wavy channel was highest among configurations and that of offset strip channel was lower than that of straight channel because the round curved surface of each strip edge was reduced the pressure loss.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.475-482
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• 2009

The objectives of this paper are to study the characteristics of heat transfer and pressure drop of the zigzag channel PCHE using diffusion bonding technology by numerical analysis. PCHE of five types are designed, which are zigzag channel angle 180$^{\circ}$, 160$^{\circ}$, 140$^{\circ}$, 120$^{\circ}$ and 100$^{\circ}$. The zigzag PCHE was numerically investigated for Reynolds number in a range of 150$\sim$800. The temperatures of the hot side were performed at 80$^{\circ}$ while that of the cold side was conducted at 20$^{\circ}C$. The results show that the performance of heat transfer rate for zigzag channel 100$^{\circ}$ increases about 11.5% compared to that of zigzag channel 180$^{\circ}$. On the other hand, the performance of pressure drop for zigzag channel 100$^{\circ}$ is remarkably higher than that of zigzag channel 180$^{\circ}$, about 2.4 times.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.751-759
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• 2010

A newly developed type PCHE(Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger), which has a longitudinal corrugation flow channel, was fabricated using etching and diffusion bonding to evaluate its hydraulic performance. The pressure drop characteristics obtained from the experimental results are presented and the local friction factors associated with different hydraulic diameters and inclination angles are discussed. The results of a three-dimensional numerical simulation are presented, conducted using commercial CFD(Computational Fluid Dynamics) software at lower Reynolds number range. The numerical results were validated by experimental data obtained from helium gas experimental apparatus. The results of CFD prediction show fairly good agreement with the experimental data.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.40 no.11
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• pp.737-744
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• 2016

The printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) is regarded as a promising candidate for advanced heat exchangers for the next-generation supercritical $CO_2$ power generation owing to its high compactness and rigid structure. In this study, an innovative type of PCHE, in which the channel sizes for the heat source fluid and heat sink fluid are different, is considered for analysis. The thermal performance of the PCHE, with supercritical $CO_2$ as the working fluid, is numerically analyzed. The results have shown that the thermal performance of the PCHE decreases monotonically when the channel size of either the heat source channel or the heat sink channel, because of the decreased flow velocity. On the other hand, the thermal performance of the PCHE is found to be almost independent of the spacing between the channels. In addition, it was found that the channel cross sectional shape has little effect on the thermal performance when the hydraulic diameter of the channel remains constant.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.915-923
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• 2008

The performance experiments for a microchannel printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) of high-performance and high-efficiency on the two technologies of micro photo-etching and diffusion bonding were performed in this study. The microchannel PCHE were experimentally investigated for Reynolds number in ranges of 100 $\sim$ 700 under various flow conditions in the hot side and the cold side. The inlet temperatures of the hot side were conducted in range of $40^{\circ}C\;{\sim}\;50^{\circ}C$ while that of the cold-side were fixed at $20^{\circ}C$. In the flow pattern, the counter flow was provided 6.8% and 10 $\sim$ 15% higher average heat transfer rate and heat transfer performance than the parallel flow, respectively. The average heat transfer rate, heat transfer performance and pressure drop increases with increasing Reynolds number in all the experiment. The increasing of inlet temperature in the experiment range has not an effect on the heat transfer performance while the pressure drop decrease slightly with that of inlet temperature. The experimental correlations to the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop factor as a function of the Reynolds number have been suggested for the microchannel PCHE.