Flow maldistribution and thermal performance deterioration in a cross-flow air to air heat exchanger with plate-fin cores

The inlet and outlet duct geometry in an air to air compact heat exchanger is always irregular. A skewed Z-type arrangement is popular between the impinging flow and the core. Such duct placements usually lead to a non-uniform flow distribution on core surface. In this research, the flow maldistribution and thermal performance deterioration in cross-flow air to air heat exchangers are investigated. The inlet duct, the core and the outlet duct are combined together to calculate the flow distribution on core inlet face. First, a CFD code is used to calculate the flow distribution, by treating the plate-fin core as a porous media. Then a heat transfer model between the two air flows in the plate-fin channels is set up. Using the flow distribution data predicted, the heat exchange effectiveness and the thermal performance deterioration factor are calculated with finite difference scheme. Experiments are performed to validate the flow distribution and heat transfer model. The results indicate that when the channel pitch is below 2.0 mm, the flow distribution is quite homogeneous and the thermal deterioration due to flow maldistribution can be neglected. However, when the channel pitch is larger than 2 mm, the maldistribution is quite large and a 10–20% thermal deterioration factor could be found. The study proves that the inlet duct, the outlet duct, and the core should be coupled together to clarify flow maldistribution problems.