Experimental Investigation on Heat Transfer Characteristics of a Gas-to-Gas Counterflow Microchannel Heat Exchanger

Abstract

Heat transfer characteristics of a gas-to-gas counterflow microchannel heat exchanger have been experimentally investigated. Temperatures and pressures at inlets and outlets of the heat exchanger have been measured to obtain heat transfer rates and pressure drops. The heat transfer and the pressure drop characteristics are discussed. Since the partition wall of the heat exchanger is thick compared with the microchannel dimensions, a simple heat exchange model with constant wall temperature is proposed to predict the heat transfer rate. The predicted heat transfer rate using the constant wall temperature model agrees well with the experimental results.

Keywords:

• compact heat exchanger
• pressure drop
• gaseous flow
• log-mean temperature difference

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant-in-aid for Scientific Research (C) #18560209) is greatly acknowledged.