Design and Manufacture of a High Efficiency Plate Heat Exchanger

Abstract

Heat recovery (HR) is often mentioned as a device that operates between two heat sources in different temperatures. In this device, the heat is transferred from one side to another in order to have a heat balance. Therefore, the device is working on preheating/precooling supplying air to the space by waste heat. The main aims of this work are to design and manufacture of a plate heat exchanger (PHE) with a high efficiency and low cost, calculate the cost of the PHE unit and compare it with the other HEs model from different companies. The PHE was manufactured at the University of Technology from aluminum plates in a simple and inexpensive way. The performance of the HE was evaluated in different external conditions and different air flow rates. The maximum effectiveness value of the HE is 50.76% at a condition of hot air side (DBT= 41⁰C, RH=21%, W=10.2 g/kg, and air flow rate = 0.476 ³/s) and a condition of cold air side (DBT= 22.2⁰C, RH=92.02 %, W=15.6 g/kg, and air flow rate = 0.476 ³/s).