Incorporating Moldability Considerations During the Design of Polymer Heat Exchangers

Abstract

Recently, available formulations of thermally enhanced polymer composites are attractive in heat exchanger applications due to their low cost and improved corrosion resistance compared to the conventional metal options. This paper presents a systematic approach to the design of plate-fin heat exchangers made out of thermally enhanced polymer composites. We have formulated the design problem as the life cycle cost minimization problem. The integrated design model introduced here accounts for heat transfer performance, molding cost, and assembly costs. We have adopted well-known models to develop individual parametric models that describe how heat transfer performance, molding cost, and assembly cost varies as a function of the geometric parameters of the heat exchanger. Thermally enhanced polymer composites behave differently from the conventional polymers during the molding process. The desired thin walled large structures are expected to pose challenges during the filling phase of the molding process. Hence, we have utilized experimentally validated simulations to develop a metamodel to identify difficult and impossible to mold design configurations. This metamodel has been integrated within the overall formulation to address the manufacturability considerations. This paper also presents several case studies that show how the material and labor cost strongly influence the final design.

Thermal performance of a polymer composite webbed-tube heat exchanger

“…Cross-sectional views of both HX designs are shown in Figure 3. The plate-fin heat exchanger design was derived from configurations investigated in previous work and optimized for material and manufacturing cost [12] as well as total coefficient of performance [13]. The dimensions of the WTHX were then chosen such that methane and water velocities , within their respective channels, were comparable to those in the plate-fin design.…”

“…However, heat can be expected to conduct from the tubes into the plate and then convect into the methane, requiring that the plate be treated as an extended surface-anchored at the tube wall-with an axial conductivity of 10 W/m•K. With these parameters, the performance of the polymer composite heat exchangers were determined, following the method described in [12], which models conduction analytically while incorporating available convection correlations. The correlations used are detailed in Appendix A.…”

Candidate thermally enhanced polymer composite materials for cooling of electronic systems

“…Recent investigations of the thermal performance of polymer composites for heat transfer applications include Bahadur and Bar-Cohen [1], Luckow et al [2], Cevallos et al [3], Cevallos et al [4] and Hall et al [5]. Applications of polymer composites include solar water heaters, heat recovery systems, seawater heat exchangers used in desalination and oil and gas processing, and compact, millimeter-scale heat exchangers.…”

“…Cevallos et al [3], analyzed moldability considerations that should be incorporated in the design of polymer heat exchangers.…”

Influence of printing direction and filler orientation on the thermal conductivity of 3D printed heat sinks

“…In general, there are two approaches which need to be focused on. One approach is the optimization of the geometry 6–11 and the other approach is the development of polymer composite material with thermal conductive fillers 12–19 …”