Simulation study on efficiency of woven matrix wire and tube heat exchanger

Abstract

Wire and tube heat exchanger has been utilized in refrigerators whose cooling performance depends on how much the wire are releasing heat. Wire efficiency is an important factor of the performance. The woven matrix is a new design of wire configuration on wire and tube heat exchanger. This research focused on optimization design of woven matix by varying wire pitch (pw 5,7,9 mm) and three inlet massflows with controlling the hot fluid temperature at 353K. Computational Fluid Dynamic Simulation is used to determine heat transfer distribution of fluid in tube. The validation was conducted experimentally by measuring 9 temperature points at heat exchanger. This research revealed that pw 7 mm with massflow rate 0.000571kg/s can decrease fluid temperature until it reaches 30oC with all wires working to release the heat and it results 74% wire efficiency. Then, pw 9 mm with massflow 0.0011kg/s has 64% wire efficiency, it was because the heat exchanger cannot decrease the fluid temperature to 303K. At high massflow, heat exchanger need more wire to decrease the temperature down to 303K. This research is recommended for cooling system widely applied in food industry, an optimal cooling system will reduce the cost of electricity consumption for cooler.