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posted by martyb on Monday September 13 2021, @12:45PM   Printer-friendly

Illinois researchers demonstrate extreme heat exchanger with additive manufacturing:

Used in most major industries – including energy, water, manufacturing, transportation, construction, electronic, chemical, petrochemical, agriculture and aerospace – heat exchangers transfer thermal energy from one medium to another.

For decades, heat exchanger designs have remained relatively unchanged. Recent advancements in 3D printing allow the production of three-dimensional exchanger designs previously thought impossible. These new and innovative designs operate significantly more effectively and efficiently but require specific software tools and design methods to manufacture the high-performance devices.

[...] "We developed shape optimization software to design a high-performance heat exchanger," said William King, professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering and co-study leader. "The software allows us to identity 3D designs that are significantly different and better than conventional designs."

The team started by studying a type of exchanger known as a tube-in-tube heat exchanger – where one tube is nested inside another tube. Tube-in-tube heat exchangers are commonly used in drinking water and building energy systems. Using a combination of the shape optimization software and additive manufacturing, the researchers designed fins (only made possible using metal 3D printing) internal to the tubes.

"We designed, fabricated and tested an optimized tube-in-tube heat exchanger," said Nenad Miljkovic, associate professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering and co-study leader. "Our optimized heat exchanger has about 20 times higher volumetric power density than a current state-of-the-art commercial tube-in-tube device."

Journal Reference:
Hyunkyu Moon, Davis J. McGregor, Nenad Miljkovic, et al. Ultra-power-dense heat exchanger development through genetic algorithm design and additive manufacturing (DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2021.08.004)


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 13 2021, @03:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 13 2021, @03:38PM (#1177437)

    "the researchers designed fins (only made possible using metal 3D printing) internal to the tubes."

    Making fins is not difficult. You can easily extrude aluminum or copper pipe with fins and fit this structure in a tube shell (extruded stainless steel is another matter). Some tube in tube heat exchangers use a corrugated internal pipe to increase surface area.

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