• 한국압력기기공학회 논문집
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• 제14권1호
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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.

• 설비공학논문집
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• 제27권8호
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• pp.426-431
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• 2015

The advantages of a printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) are the compactness and efficiency derived from its heat-transfer characteristics; furthermore, a PCHE for which a diffusion bonding method was used during production can be applied to extreme environments such as a cryogenic condition. In this study, a micro-channel PCHE fabricated by diffusion bonding was investigated in a cryogenic environment regarding its thermal performance and the pressure drop. The test rig consists of an LN2 storage tank, vaporizers, heaters, and a cold box, whereby the vaporized cryogenic nitrogen flows in hot and cold streams. The overall heat-transfer coefficients were evaluated and compared with traditional correlations. Lastly, we suggested the modified heat-transfer correlations for a PCHE in a cryogenic condition.

• 한국유체기계학회 논문집
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• 제14권5호
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• pp.55-62
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• 2011

Shape optimization of a Printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) has been performed by using three-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (3-D RANS) analysis and surrogate modeling techniques. The objective function is defined as a linear combination of effectiveness of the PCHE term and pressure drop in the cold channels of the PCHE. The cold channel angle and the ellipse aspect ratio of the cold channel are used as design variables for the optimization. Design points are selected through Latin-hypercube sampling. The optimal point is determined through surrogate-based optimization method which uses 3-D RANS analyses at design points. The results of three types of surrogate model are compared each other. The results of the optimizations indicate improved performance in friction loss but low performance in effectiveness than the reference shape.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권6호
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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.

• 설비공학논문집
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• 제26권12호
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• pp.600-604
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• 2014

Longitudinal heat conduction is known to be an important factor in the design of a printed circuit heat exchanger(PCHE) for cryogenic applications. Parasitic heat conduction through the heat exchanger frame needs to be considered because it is known to decrease the effectiveness of the heat exchanger. In this paper, a conjugate heat transfer problem in a simple counter-flow PCHE is analyzed by a computational fluid dynamics simulation. The effect of longitudinal conduction in a straight channel is compared with the theoretical effectiveness-NTU relationship that assumes a "thin" heat exchanger frame. The calculation results suggest that the theoretical model is valid in the present calculation conditions where NTU is < 13.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제32권12호
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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.

• 한국수소및신에너지학회논문집
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• 제32권5호
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• pp.347-355
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• 2021

This paper is a study on the thermal design of printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) to supply cryogenic high pressure liquid hydrogen stored from hydrogen liquefaction process by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This PCHE should be thermally designed to raise the temperature of cryogenic liquid hydrogen to a desired temperature and also to be anti-icing to avoid any local freezing in hot channel. This research presents the effect of inlet velocity and inlet temperature of hydrogen, and the effect of flow configurations of co/counter-flow on thermal design of PCHE heat exchanger based on various CFD simulation analysis.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권5호
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• pp.1874-1889
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• 2022

In this study, we evaluate the thermal-hydraulic performance and economics of Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE) according to the channel types and associated shape variables for the design of recuperators with Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors (SFRs). To perform the evaluations with variables such as the Reynolds number, channel types, tube diameter, and shape variables, a code for the heat exchanger is developed and verified through a comparison with experimental results. Based on the code, the volume and pressure drop are calculated, and an economic assessment is conducted. The zigzag type, which has bending angle of 80° and a tube diameter of 1.9 mm, is the most economical channel type in a SFR using CO₂ as the working fluid. For a SFR using N₂, we recommend the airfoil type with vertical and horizontal numbers of 1.6 and 1.1, respectively. The airfoil type is superior when the mass flow rate is large because the operating cost changes significantly. When the mass flow rate is small, volume is a more important design parameter, therefore, the zigzag type is suitable. In addition, we conduct a sensitivity analysis based on the production cost of the PCHE to identify changes in optimal channel types.

• 한국가시화정보학회지
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• 제19권3호
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• pp.69-76
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• 2021

Printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) is a compact heat exchanger with good heat transfer performance, high structure integrity, and reliability over a wide range of temperatures and pressures. Instead of the traditional zigzag and straight shape channel, the sinusoidal shape channel was adopted in this study to investigate the relation of thermal-hydraulic performance and waviness factors (period and amplitude). The local flow characteristics and the heat flux distribution were compared to verify the effects of period and amplitude on heat transfer performance. As the period of channel becomes shorter, the rapid change of the flow direction can produce high flow separation around the corner leading to the disturbance of the boundary layer opposite wall. The nonuniform distribution of flow velocity appeared around the corner positions can promote fluid mixing and lead to higher thermal performance. An evaluation index was used to compare the comprehensive performance of PCHE considering the Nusselt number and Fanning factor. Based on the simulation results, the optimal design parameters of PCHE channel shape were found that the channel with an equivalent bending angle of 15° offers the highest heat flux capacity.

• 한국수소및신에너지학회논문집
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• 제33권5호
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• pp.541-549
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• 2022

This study investigates anti-icing design by conjugate heat transfer analysis in lab-scale printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) for supply of cryogenic high pressure liquid hydrogen. The conjugate heat transfer analysis by using computational dynamics (CFD) provided various temperature distributions at important locations in PCHE heat exchanger and predicted the possibility of freezing in hot channel. And, the effect of inlet temperature of glycol water was analyzed in order to resolve the freezing problem in PCHE.