The effects of geometrical parameters of a corrugated channel with in out-of-phase arrangement

Numerical investigations of forced turbulent convective flow and heat transfer in a corrugated channel of plate heat exchanger are carried out. The continuity, momentum and energy equations were solved by means of a finite volume method (FVM). The top and bottom walls of the corrugated channel are heated at constant heat flux boundary conditions. The effects of geometrical parameters of corrugated tilt angles, channel heights and wavy heights using water as a working fluid on the thermal and flow fields as well as on the performance of evaluation criterion are studied. The corrugated channel with three different corrugated tilt angles of 20°, 40° and 60° with different channel heights of 12.5, 15 and 17.5 mm and different wavy heights of 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5 mm are tested. This investigation covers Reynolds number and heat flux in the range of 8000–20,000 and 0.4–6 kW/m2, respectively. The numerical results indicate that the wavy angle of 60° and wavy height of 2.5 mm with channel height of 17.5 mm are the optimum parameters and they have a significant effect on the heat transfer enhancement. It is found that using wavy channel is a suitable method to increase the thermal performance and getting higher compactness of the heat exchanger.