EFFECT OF PARTITION WALL THICKNESS ON HEAT TRANSFER CHARACTERISTICS OF A GAS-TO-GAS COUNTERFLOW MICROCHANNEL HEAT EXCHANGER

Effect of partition wall thickness on heat transfer characteristics of a two-stream counterflow gas-to-gas microchannel heat exchanger has been numerically investigated. The flow passages of the microchannel heat exchanger are plane channels of 100 mu m in height and 20 mm in length. The partition wall thickness ranges from 20 mu m to 200 mu m. The material of the partition wall is assumed to be stainless steel. The numerical methodology is based on the Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian method. The computations were performed for a wide range of flow rate to investigate effect of partition wall thickness on heat transfer characteristics of the microchannel heat exchanger. The computational results are presented in form of temperature distributions, bulk temperatures, total temperatures, and heat flux variations along the channels. We have concluded that the partition wall thickness affects significantly heat transfer characteristics of a microchannel heat exchanger.