Preliminary results of MCPHE by experimental studies

The influence of grooves in the U-turn areas for the multi-channel-plate heat exchangers (MCPHEs) is significant due to the friction and flow phenomena in this region. In this study, two types of MCPHE made of acrylic plates were tested: one with grooves in the U-turn area, one without. During this series of experiments, heat transfer rate, overall volumetric heat transfer coefficient, Nusselt number and overall pressure drop (i.e., including the entrance and exit losses) were measured and calculated in order to understand the overall performance of these two different constructions of MCPHE. The experimental results show that the heat exchanger without grooves in the U-turn area possessed higher heat transfer performance and lower overall pressure drop.