Gas-to-gas heat exchanger design for high performance thermal energy storage

Cardenas, B.; Garvey, Seamus D.; Kantharaj, Bharath; Simpson, M.C.

Abstract

The mathematical modelling and optimization of a gas-to-gas heat exchanger with a non-constant cross sectional area is presented. The design of the cross sectional area of the heat exchanger analyzed is based on an hexagonal mesh, which would be highly impractical to fabricate in a conventional way but could be built relatively easily through modern manufacturing techniques. The geometric configuration proposed allows attaining a high exergy efficiency and a significant cost reduction, measured in terms of volume per unit of exergy transfer. The relationship that exists between the overall exergy efficiency of the heat exchanger and its cost is thoroughly explained throughout the study.

The results obtained from the modelling demonstrate the premise that it is possible to realize designs for heat exchangers that are highly exergy-efficient and very cheap, owing to the small volume of material required, if the constrains imposed by the limitations of traditional manufacturing methods are set aside. Furthermore, the study reveals a very important fact: the volume of material in a heat exchanger increases in quadratic proportion to its characteristic dimension, which implies that scaling up the geometry has a strong impact on its cost-effectiveness.

Citation

Cardenas, B., Garvey, S. D., Kantharaj, B., & Simpson, M. (2017). Gas-to-gas heat exchanger design for high performance thermal energy storage. Journal of Energy Storage, 14(2), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.est.2017.03.004

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 1, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Mar 18, 2017
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Aug 16, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 16, 2017
• Journal: Journal of Energy Storage
• Electronic ISSN: 2352-152X
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 2
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.est.2017.03.004
• Keywords: Air to air heat exchanger; High exergy efficiency; Non-constant cross sectional area; Additive manufacturing; Cost optimization
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/964122
• Publisher URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X17300956?via%3Dihub
• Contract Date: Aug 16, 2017