Study on the exergy loss of the horizontal concentric micro-fin tube heat exchanger

Experimental and theoretical investigations on the entropy generation, exergy loss of a horizontal concentric micro-fin tube heat exchanger are presented. The experiments setup are designed and constructed for the measured data by using hot water and cold water as working fluids. The micro-fin tube is fabricated from the copper tube with an inner diameter of 8.92 mm. The experiments are performed for the hot and cold water mass flow rates in the range of 0.02-0.10 kg/s. The inlet hot water and inlet cold water temperatures are between 40 and 50 degrees C, and between 15 and 20 degrees C. respectively. The effects of relevant parameters on the entropy generation, and exergy loss are discussed. A central finite difference method is employed to solve the model for obtaining temperature distribution, entropy generation, and exergy loss of the micro-fin tube heat exchanger. The predicted results obtained from the model are verified by comparing with the present measured data. Reasonable agreement is obtained from the comparison between predicted results and those from the measured data. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.