Expanded Microchannel Heat Exchanger: Nondestructive Evaluation

Authors

David C. Denkenberger, Tennessee State University
Michael J. Brandemuehl, University of Colorado Boulder
Joshua M. Pearce, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
John Zhai, University of Colorado Boulder

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-14-2019

Volume

40

Issue

20

Journal

Heat Transfer Engineering

First Page

1671

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.1080/01457632.2018.1496976

Last Page

1679

Abstract

Recent theoretical developments in expanded microchannel polymer-based heat exchangers were promising, but the initial experiments underperformed simple theory. In order to understand this discrepancy, this article introduces a nondestructive methodology for characterizing polymer heat exchangers. A computerized tomography (X-ray) scan was performed to diagnose the problem. The method was tested on the expanded microchannel polymer heat exchanger to determine the variations in geometry between the theoretical and experimental heat exchanger. Channels were found to have variable heights causing flow maldistribution. The results are discussed to guide further technological development of this approach to heat exchanger design and fabrication and lays the groundwork for an advanced discretized modeling.