Study on the turbulence model sensitivity for various cross-corrugated surfaces applied to matrix type heat exchanger

Abstract

Diverse cross-corrugated surface geometries were considered to estimate the sensitivity of four variants of k-ε turbulence models (Low Reynolds, standard, RNG and realizable models). The cross-corrugated surfaces considered in this study are a conventional sinusoidal shape and two different asymmetric shapes. The numerical simulations using the steady incompressible Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes (RANS) equations were carried out to obtain the steady solutions of the flow and thermal fields in the unitary cell of the heat exchanger matrix. In addition, the experimental test for the measurement of local convective heat transfer coefficients on the heat transfer surfaces was performed by means of the Transient liquid crystal (TLC) technique in order to compare the numerical results with the measured data. The features on detailed flow structure and corresponding heat transfer in the unitary cell of the matrix type heat exchanger are compared and analyzed against four different turbulence models considered in this study.