DESIGN - OPTIMIZATION AND PERFORMANCE OF PLATE HEAT EXCHANGER

Abstract

The plate heat exchanger is an important heat recovery equipment which transfers heat from high temperature fluid to low temperature fluid with help of corrugated plates. The plates of plate heat exchanger provide large surface area for heat transfer per unit volume. They have both the compactness and high thermal performance. The plate heat exchangers are generally used in the many fields of engineering like refrigeration, HVAC, petrochemical, liquid food, beverage, dairy and heath care sector. In the present study, thermo-hydraulic performance of plate heat exchanger has been presented. A range of geometrical and operating parameters have been considered for numerical simulation of plate heat exchanger. The performance of plate heat exchanger has been obtained in the terms of the effectiveness, heat transfer and pressure drop for two fluids. Further, the plate heat exchanger has been optimized for the single objective as well as multi-objective functions using genetic algorithm. The objective of this study is to minimize two objective functions independently which are entropy generation unit and total annual cost for the specified heat transfer rate. The optimum values of the geometrical parameters have been obtained after optimization for single objective as well for multi objective optimization. The optimum results for unconstrained and constrained conditions have been compared.