An experimental study on single phase convection heat transfer and pressure drop in two brazed plate heat exchangers with different chevron shapes and hydraulic diameters

An experimental study on heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics was performed at single phase flow in two Brazed plate heat exchangers (BPHEs) with different geometries. The corrugation density of one of the BPHE (Type II) was two times as high as that of the other BPHE (Type I). The hydraulic diameter of the type II BPHE was 2.13 mm, which was 38 % smaller than that of the type I BPHE. Also, the cross section shape of the flow channels for the type II BPHE was different from that for conventional BPHEs due to the unusual corrugation patterns and brazing points. The experimental conditions for temperatures were varied from 4.6 °C to 49.1 °C, and for mass flow rates were changed from 0.07 kg/s to 1.24 kg/s. The measured results showed that pressure drop in the type II BPHE was about 110 % higher than that in the type I BPHE. Nu of the type II was higher than that of the type I BPHE and the enhancement became larger with the increase of Re at the ranges above 800. New correlations for f_F and Nu were proposed by this study and their prediction accuracy could be improved by considering the surface enlargement factor in the correlations. The performance evaluation of the two BPHEs was performed by (j/f_F ^1/3) which represented the ratio of heat transfer and pressure drop performance. Also, a new parameter, the capacity compactness of PHE, was proposed and it presented the PHE capacity per unit volume and unit log mean temperature difference. The comparison showed that the two BPHEs had similar values of the (j/f_F ^1/3), whereas they had significantly different values of the capacity compactness. The capacity compactness of the type II BPHE was 1.5 times higher than that for the type I BPHE.