Numerical investigation of heat transfer and pressure drop of cross-flow woven wire mesh heat exchanger

Abstract EN

In this paper, the insertion effect of a woven wire mesh to cross flow heat exchanger will be studied under steady state laminar flow conditions.

3-D numerical model was developed for the bare heat exchanger and the other wire mesh modules.

The mesh wire diameter is 2.5 mm, porosity of 0.75, permeability of 10^-10 and layer-to-layer spacings of (3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 mm).

Air flows with velocity range up to 3.5 cm/s through rectangular duct of 50 cm X 25 cm with inlet temperature of 25^oC before it is heated with corrugated water tube (19 mm in diameter) with hot water inlet velocity of 1 m/s and temperature of 50 ^oC.

The thermal and hydraulic performance were evaluated.

Results showed that an enhancement in overall heat transfer coefficient was achieved of 250 % for the 3 mm spaced module while the air pressure drop increases significantly.