CFD investigation of Plate Channels
(2022) MVKM01 20212Department of Energy Sciences
- Abstract
- Alfa Laval has a wide product range for plate heat exchangers that can be applied in most industries. The constant development of new and old heat exchangers drive the need for new and efficient methods that can reliably be used in the development process. In this thesis, a new turbulence model within a computational fluid dynamics-program has been tested and evaluated for one of Alfa Lavals commercial plate heat exchangers to see if better results can be achieved compared to older models.
This project has been divided into three main parts. Firstly, a mesh-study was conducted for a typical heat exchanger geometry in order to understand mesh-size in relation to interesting parameters. Secondly, since the turbulence-model has a set of... (More) - Alfa Laval has a wide product range for plate heat exchangers that can be applied in most industries. The constant development of new and old heat exchangers drive the need for new and efficient methods that can reliably be used in the development process. In this thesis, a new turbulence model within a computational fluid dynamics-program has been tested and evaluated for one of Alfa Lavals commercial plate heat exchangers to see if better results can be achieved compared to older models.
This project has been divided into three main parts. Firstly, a mesh-study was conducted for a typical heat exchanger geometry in order to understand mesh-size in relation to interesting parameters. Secondly, since the turbulence-model has a set of parameters for tuning the flow, an initial parameter study was conducted. Testing combinations of the parameters on a smaller geometry. This was also combined with a high-resolved large eddy simulation (LES) to study the parameters effect on local phenomenons. Lastly, a global parameter-study was conducted for the commercial plate heat exchanger.
The project showed that better accuracy can be achieved with certain sets of model-parameters depending on different plate-combinations. Future work is however needed as it could be interesting to further study local phenomenons using a LES-model on a plate heat exchanger that has experimental data, but most importantly test the GEKO-model for more heat exchangers. (Less) - Popular Abstract
- Plate heat exchangers are a key component for companies in industrial processes to become more efficient and carbon neutral. A more efficient heat exchanger can result in less energy consumption, or more energy recovery. Due to its wide spread applications, the drive for new and more efficient plate heat exchangers are constantly in development. In the development process, it is necessary to accurately predict the heat transfer and energy losses by modelling the turbulence and predicting the flow within the heat exchanger. %This thesis aims to evaluate a new type of model for
Traditional methods for modelling turbulence have mainly been developed through relatively simple flow cases such as flow over a backwards-facing step, or over an... (More) - Plate heat exchangers are a key component for companies in industrial processes to become more efficient and carbon neutral. A more efficient heat exchanger can result in less energy consumption, or more energy recovery. Due to its wide spread applications, the drive for new and more efficient plate heat exchangers are constantly in development. In the development process, it is necessary to accurately predict the heat transfer and energy losses by modelling the turbulence and predicting the flow within the heat exchanger. %This thesis aims to evaluate a new type of model for
Traditional methods for modelling turbulence have mainly been developed through relatively simple flow cases such as flow over a backwards-facing step, or over an airfoil. However, the channels within a plate heat exchanger are complex and experience high levels of turbulence. It has been proven that the traditional turbulence models can't be applied with accurate results and therefore, new models with better accuracy could greatly benefit development of new plate heat exchangers.
In this thesis a new type of turbulence model has been evaluated which, unlike older models, allows the user to adjust a set of six parameters for calibrating the flow to specific cases. The model was evaluated based on global parameters such as heat transfer and pressure drop and compared with experiments for a commercial plate heat exchanger. It was also compared with a more advanced and detailed simulation run on a test-geometry, focusing on studying local phenomenons. Other aspects regarding simulation accuracy has also been addressed.
The project showed that significantly better accuracy can be achieved with certain sets of model-parameters. However, since the plate heat exchangers can be configured with different plate-combinations, only two out of three plate-combinations showed improved accuracy whilst the third remained unchanged. This could however not be explained and further analysed. If the model is to be used in the future, more evaluation is required for other plate heat exchange-models as it is still unclear if other geometric parameters have an impact on the results. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9078341
- author
- Johannesson, Anton LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MVKM01 20212
- year
- 2022
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Plate Heat Exchanger, Turbulence modelling, Generalized k-omega, GEKO, CFD, Computational Fluid Dynamics
- report number
- LUTMDN/TMHP-22/5494-SE
- ISSN
- 0282-1990
- language
- English
- id
- 9078341
- date added to LUP
- 2022-04-13 11:35:21
- date last changed
- 2022-04-13 11:35:21
@misc{9078341,
abstract = {{Alfa Laval has a wide product range for plate heat exchangers that can be applied in most industries. The constant development of new and old heat exchangers drive the need for new and efficient methods that can reliably be used in the development process. In this thesis, a new turbulence model within a computational fluid dynamics-program has been tested and evaluated for one of Alfa Lavals commercial plate heat exchangers to see if better results can be achieved compared to older models.
This project has been divided into three main parts. Firstly, a mesh-study was conducted for a typical heat exchanger geometry in order to understand mesh-size in relation to interesting parameters. Secondly, since the turbulence-model has a set of parameters for tuning the flow, an initial parameter study was conducted. Testing combinations of the parameters on a smaller geometry. This was also combined with a high-resolved large eddy simulation (LES) to study the parameters effect on local phenomenons. Lastly, a global parameter-study was conducted for the commercial plate heat exchanger.
The project showed that better accuracy can be achieved with certain sets of model-parameters depending on different plate-combinations. Future work is however needed as it could be interesting to further study local phenomenons using a LES-model on a plate heat exchanger that has experimental data, but most importantly test the GEKO-model for more heat exchangers.}},
author = {{Johannesson, Anton}},
issn = {{0282-1990}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{CFD investigation of Plate Channels}},
year = {{2022}},
}