Numerical and experimental investigation of a novel liquid-liquid plate heat exchanger

Heat exchangers are one of the most important devices in industry. They are widely used in various industrial areas, heating, refrigeration and air-conditioning systems with different types and capacities. In practice, there are a lot of types of heat exchangers. Plate heat exchangers are among the most widely used heat exchangers to perform heat transfer between two fluids. They are preferred for their high level of heat exchange efficiency, small volume, easy maintenance, sufficient pressure and temperature resistance in a wide range of systems like HVAC+R and waste heat recovery. Their use has also spread in our country. New constructions are needed in order to manufacture more effective plate heat exchangers. By the proposed thesis, fluid flow and heat transfer were numerically investigated for proposed two different type new generation plate heat exchanger. For novel designed plates, mixing of the working fluids in perpendicular to the flow directions and regeneration the boundary layer in all directions are investigated. In order to validate numerical results an experimental setup was built. In this thesis, chevron type plate which is commonly used today is also studied. For a given geometry, the numerical results showed good agreement with literature. The results are given in graphs for both chevron and the new type designed plate. Some equations are derived for given dimensions. Velocity, temperature and field synergy contours also shown. Using same geometrical dimensions given by literature, it was found that heat transfer enhances about 40% at the same pumping power.