Numerical investigation of plate heat exchanger design

A 2D finite volume method is presented for the prediction of laminar flow in plate heat exchangers. The grid generation is completely automatic, and includes the settings for the boundary conditions which are dependent on the type of arrangement. The Navier-Stokes-Equations are used to compute the veloctiy and temperature fields, while Conjugate Heat Transfer is used to predict the heat transfer to or from the walls. Validations with benchmark solutions agree well with our approach. Solutions are presented for the end effect of plate heat exchangers, for changing flow conditions in multipass arrangements and several different configurations. The results were compared to literature data.