Session: 16-02-01: Poster Session: NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), NSF Posters

Paper Number: 99982

99982 - Assessing the Performance of 3d Printed Heat Exchangers for Power Plants Using Cfd 

For over a century, heat exchangers have been almost exclusively made of metal. More recently, researchers have explored the possibility of using polymers and additive manufacturing (3D printing) to create plastic heat exchangers. Heat exchangers are used in many engineering applications including power plants, which are also the one of the largest users of freshwater in the United States. By creating an air-cooled heat exchanger, the amount of water used can be significantly reduced or completely eliminated. Additive manufacturing allows for the device to be made entirely in one piece, this reduces the risk for leakage. Heat exchanges constructed of metal are expensive, heavy, and can be chemically reactive rendering them unusable for many applications. Polymers offer many advantages such as low cost, lightweight, flexible in shape, and they are non-chemically reactive. The drawback is that plastic is a non-thermally conductive material, this significantly reduces the effectiveness of heat exchangers and creates high air-side pressure drops. This can be remedied by using certain designs that increase the surface area to volume ratio, thinning the walls, and using filled polymers to increase the thermal conductivity. These designs cannot be manufactured using traditional techniques. Additive manufacturing has the ability to manufacture complex geometries; Using fused filament deposition, the polymer is heated and extruded through a nozzle to create a layered solid. The goal of this study is to exploit that ability to create a more effective heat exchanger. Using already existing heat exchanger designs, the geometries are first modeled in Solidworks, a computer aided design software. Each portion of the structure (air, water, and the heat exchanger) are modeled separately then assembled in Solidworks. Next, the design is imported into Star CCM+ which is a computational fluid dynamics software. Air, water, and plastic physics continuums are created to represent the real-life conditions the heat exchanger would experience, and assigned to their respective part of the design. The plastic physics continuum can be varied to experiment with different materials. Velocity and temperature scenes are created, for each, one intersecting the water and another intersecting the air. The visual results of cooling the liquid inside the device are compared to existing experimental data and analyzed for effectiveness. The testing process will then be used to create a new design and predict the performance. This study works to develop models of existing air-cooled heat exchangers, and applying the process of creation and testing to new designs.

Presenting Author: Katherine Butler South Dakota State University

Presenting Author Biography: Katherine Butler is currently a sophomore studying mechanical engineering at the University of Iowa. She spent the summer researching 3D printed heat exchangers at South Dakota State University through the National Science Foundation REU program.

Authors:

Katherine Butler South Dakota State University
Gregory Michna South Dakota State University
Stephen Gent South Dakota State University