ASEE 2014 Zone I Conference, April 3-5, 2014, University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT, USA.

Analysis of a Counter Flow Parallel-plate Heat

Exchanger
Ruoxu Jia, Junling Hu, and Abubaker E.M Elbalsohi,
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT, USA
ruoxujia@gmail.com, jjhu@bridgeport.edu, aelbalos@my.bridgeport.edu

Abstract—Heat exchangers are used widely in many
industries for heat recovery or cooling purposes. This paper
developed a numerical model to simulate a counter flow parallel
heat exchanger. A representative repeating unit cell of the multi-
channeled heat exchanger was taken as the computational
domain, which includes a cold channel and a hot channel
separated by plates. The model was simulated in COMSOL for
an oil to water heat exchanger. Higher temperature oil and
relatively lower temperature water entered two separate parallel
channels in opposite directions. The detailed distributions of
temperature, velocity, and pressure were used to analyze the
performance of the heat exchanger. It was found the model can
be used to provide guidance for designing an optimal heat
exchanger.
Keywords—heat exchanger; cooling system; counter flow ,
CFD
I. INTRODUCTION
Currently, heat exchangers have a wide range of industry
applications. They are widely used in space heating,
refrigeration, power plants, petrochemical plants, petroleum
refineries and sewage treatment [1]. There are many types of
heat exchanger designs for various applications. The major
types of heat exchanger include double pipe, shell-tube, plate
and shell, plate fin, and phase change heat exchangers. The
flow in a heat exchanger can be arranged as parallel flow,
counter flow, and cross flow. New heat exchangers have been
designed for emerging thermal engineering fields, such as
miniaturized heat exchanger for cooling electronics
components and systems, miniaturized heterogeneously
catalyzed gas-phase reactions, thermoelectric generators, etc.
[2-5] New materials, such as polymers, have been explored to
develop polymer heat exchangers for better fouling and
corrosion resistance [6].
Parallel-plated heat exchangers have been studied
analytically and experimentally to provide formulations for
heat exchanger design. Vera and Linan [3] analyzed
multilayered, counterflow, parallel-plate heat exchangers
numerically and theoretically. They developed a two-
dimensional model to find analytical expressions and their
approximations for the fully developed laminar counter flow in
long parallel-plate heat exchangers. Kragh et al. [7] developed
a new counter flow heat exchange for ventilation systems in
cold climates. The efficiency of the new heat exchanger was
calculated theoretically and measured experimentally.
Zhan et al. [8] used an experimentally validated model to
understand the influence of operational and geometric
parameters of the cross-flow and counter-flow exchangers on
the different metrics of cooling performance. Overall the
counter-flow exchanger demonstrated better cooling
effectiveness and higher cooling capacity than the cross-flow
system. However, the energy efficiency of the counter-flow
system is often seen to be lower than that of the more
conventional cross-flow dew point system [8]. The shape of the
cross section of the heat exchanger also has a significant effect
on efficiency. Hasan et al. [9] studied the effect of channel
geometry on the performance of a counter-flow MCHE (main
cryogenic heat exchanger). The influences of channel shapes
such as circular, square, rectangular, isotriangular, and
trapezoidal were evaluated by numerical simulations. In their
studies, decreasing the volume of each channel or increasing
the number of channels increased the heat transfer, but the
required pumping power and pressure drop were also
increased. The channel with a circular shape resulted in the
best overall performance. [10]
Recently, CFD analysis of heat exchanger has been used to
help design heat exchangers and to analyze their thermal
performance, effectiveness and temperature distributions. This
paper simulated the heat transfer and fluid flow in a
multilayered counter flow parallel-plated heat exchanger. The
temperature distributions and heat transfer rate are analyzed to
study the performance of the heat exchanger.
II. MATHEMATICAL MODEL
Fig.1 Schematic of a counter flow heat exchanger
 Figure 1 shows a schematic sketch of a multilayered
counter flow parallel-plated heat exchanger. Two fluids with
different temperatures marked with different colors in Fig. 1
enter numerous channels in separate layers. Each channel is
formed by thin folded plates and separation plates between
cold and hot fluids. The thickness of the plates is t and the
channels have a square shape with a size w and length L. A unit
cell consists of a cold channel and a hot channel is taken as the
computational domain for CFD analysis, as shown in Fig. 2.
III. CFD SIMULATION
This paper simulated an oil to water heat exchanger. Hot
oil at 330K enters hot channel with an inlet velocity of 0.04
m/s. Cold water at 300K enters cold channel with an inlet
velocity of 0.005 m/s. The channels have a dimension of 2 cm
× 2 cm × 50 cm. Channel wall thickness is 2 mm. Table I
listed the important parameters used in this simulation. The
properties of oil and water were set as a function of
temperature in the simulation. The properties of water at 25oC
and those of oil at 40oC were listed in Table I to calculate
Reynolds numbers for each channel. The Reynolds numbers in
the channels are found to be 224 and 6.44 for the respective
cold and hot channels.

TABLE I. TRANSLATION OF DESIGN REQUIREMENTS

Parameter Symbol Value unit
Channel length L 0.2 m
Channel width W 0.02 m
Channel thickness t 0.002 m
Density of water ρw 997 kg/m3
Density of oil ρo 876 kg/m3
Density of steel ρs 7850 kg/m3
Fig.2 side view the computational domain consisting of one cold and one hot Thermal conductivity of water kw 0.607 W/m·K
channels Thermal conductivity of oil ko 0.145 W/m·K
Thermal conductivity of steel ks 44.5 W/m·K
For a laminar flow in the channels, Navier-Stokes Heat capacity of water cpw 4180 J/kg·K
equations are solved for the heat transfer and fluid flow in the Heat capacity of oil cpo 1964 J/kg·K
channels. The mathematical model includes conservations of Heat capacity of steel cps 475 J/kg·K
mass, momentum and energy in the fluid domains and Dynamics viscosity of water µ 0.891×10-3 Kg/m·s
Dynamics viscosity of oil µ 0.2177 Kg/m·s
conduction in the solid domain for a steady state laminar flow. 6.14
Prandtl number of water Prw
Mass conservation Prandtl number of oil Pro 2963
Inlet velocity of water Vinw 0.005 m/s
∂u ∂u ∂u (1)
u +v +w =0 Inlet velocity of oil Vino 0.04 m/s
∂x ∂y ∂z Reynolds number of water Rew 224
Momentum conservation Reynolds number of oil Reo 6.44
Inlet temperature of water Tinw 300 K
∂u ∂u ∂u µ ⎛ ∂ 2u ∂ 2u ∂ 2u ⎞ 1 ∂p (2)
u + v + w = ⎜⎜ 2 + 2 + 2 ⎟⎟ − Inlet temperature of oil TinO 330 K
∂x ∂y ∂z ρ ⎝ ∂x ∂y ∂z ⎠ ρ ∂x
∂v ∂v ∂v µ ⎛ ∂ 2v ∂ 2v ∂ 2v ⎞ 1 ∂p (3)
u + v + w = ⎜⎜ 2 + 2 + 2 ⎟⎟ −
∂x ∂y ∂z ρ ⎝ ∂x ∂y ∂z ⎠ ρ ∂y
∂w ∂w ∂w µ ⎛ ∂ 2 w ∂ 2 w ∂ 2 w ⎞ 1 ∂p (4)
u +v +w = ⎜ + + ⎟ − +g
∂x ∂y ∂z ρ ⎜⎝ ∂x 2 ∂y 2 ∂z 2 ⎟⎠ ρ ∂z
Energy conservation
∂T ∂T ∂T k ⎛ ∂ 2T ∂ 2T ∂ 2T ⎞ (5)
u +v +w = ⎜ + + ⎟
∂x ∂y ∂z ρc p ⎜⎝ ∂x 2 ∂y 2 ∂z 2 ⎟⎠
where u, v, and w are velocity components in x, y, z direction,
respectively; ρ is density, µ is dynamic viscosity, p is pressure ,
T is the temperature , g is gravitational acceleration, k is
thermal conductivity, and cp is heat capacity.
Hot fluid and cold fluids enters channels of the opposite
side. Velocity inlet boundary conditions are taken at the inlets
and pressure outlet boundary are set at the fluid exits. The Fig.3 Computational mesh
boundary conditions for walls are set as shown in Fig. 2. Two
side walls are insulated due to symmetry. The periodic
boundary condition is set for the top and bottom walls. The problem was numerically solved by using the software
COMSOL 4.3. An unstructured mesh of 563707 tetrahedral
elements is shown in Fig. 3. The simulations were carried out
in a laptop with Intel core i7 processors and 8 GB RAM. Each
simulation took 20 minutes to converge with a mesh shown in
Figure 3. Finer meshes near the wall boundaries are generated The average fluids temperatures and the centerline
to resolve the high velocity and temperature gradients at the temperature cahnges in the channels along channel length
near wall boundaries. A structured mesh stretched in fluid direction are shown in Figs. 7 and 8. Hot oil enters the hot
direction could be used to significantly reduce the number of channel with an averaged temperature of 330K and exits the
mesh and thus solution time, however, the general projection channel with an average temperature of 323.7K. Cold water
function in COMSOL does not work with the structured mesh. enters the cold channel with an average temperature of 300K
and exits with an average temperature of 310.5K. However,
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS the temperatures at the channel centers only slightly changed
along the centerline. Oil temperture at the channel center only
Figures 4 and 5 report the temperature distribution in the decreased 0.3K and centerline water temperature increased
surface of the 3D computational domain and in the x-z planes 1.5K.
along channel length directions. It can be clearly seen tht hot
oil enters the top channel with an uniform temperature of 330K
and is cooled along the channel length and cold water enters
the top channel with a temperture of 300K is heated along the
channel length. Heat transfer between the two channels are
through the channel walls. As shown in Fig. 6, heat spreads
over the walls and walls serve as a media to exchange heat
with fluids.

Fig.7 Average fluid temperatures along the channel length

Fig. 4 Surface temperature of the channels and walls

Fig.5 Temperature fields in the x-z cut-planes along channel length.

Fig.8 Fluid temperature changes along channel centerlines

Fig.6 Temperature fields in the solid walls in the x-z cut-planes along channel
length
 The flattened centerline velocities indicate hydrodynamically
fully developed boundary layers have been established. The
centerline velocity still changes remarkably even in the fully
developed region in the oil channel because the thermal fluid
properties of oil vary significantly with temperature. The
temperature field, streamwise velocity field and pressure field
in the channel x-y center planes are shown in Fig. 11. It can be
seen that the thermal boundary layer of each fluid is much
thinner the fluid’s velocity boundary layer, especially for oil.

Fig.9 Prandtl number of fluids

The Prandtl number of the two working fluids are greater 1,

especially of oil. Prandtl numbers of the two fluids calculated
with their real properties are shown in Fig. 9. The Prandtl
number of water varies in a range of 3.33-5.90 and that of oil
varies in a range of 1235-5020 in the respective cold and hot
channels. Prandtl number is defined as the ratio of momentum
diffusivity to thermal diffusivity of fluid. Heat diffuses very
slowly compared to momentum diffusion in high Prandtl
number fluids, which result in a thinner thermal boundary
relative to the velocity boundary and a longer thermal entrance
length compared to the hydrodynamic length.
The normalized centerline velocities in two channels are
shown in Fig. 10. Centerline velocities increase rapidly in the
underdeveloped flow region near the flow entrances and the
changes slow as it approaches to the fully developed region. Fig. 10 Centerline velocities in two channels normalized by the inlet velocities

T v p T v p

(a) (b)
Fig.11 Contour fields of temperature, streamwise velocity, and pressure along x-y plane: (a) cold channel and (b) hot channel
 The calculated pressure drop in the cold and hot channels
is 0.0763 Pa and 68.0 Pa, respectively and corresponding
average temperature drops in the cold and hot channels are
10.5K and 6.3K. Further, the center temperature of oil only
changed 0.3K and the center temperature of water increased
1.5K. Therefore, the inlet velocity of oil is decreased to 0.02
m/s and the water inlet velocity is increased to 0.05 m/s in
order to increase temperature drop and decrease pressure drop
in the hot channel without significantly increase pressure drop
in the cold channel.
Figures 12 and 13 show the average temperature along the
channels and the temperature changes in the centerlines of the
channels for the case with the increased inlet water velocity
and decreased oil velocity. The average temperature and
centerline temperature drop are 2K and 0.05K for the cold
channel and 10K and 0.9K for the hot channel. The pressure
drops are 2.5 Pa and 42.7 Pa for the corresponding cold and
hot channels. The working fluid inlet velocities, channel sizes Fig.13 Fluid temperature changes along channel centerlines for the case with
and other heat exchanger design and working conditions can modified inlet velocities
be further optimized to achieve the best energy efficiency and
operating requirements.
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V CONCLUSION
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with oil and water as two working fluids. The detailed
temperature, velocities, and pressure distributions in the
channels can be used as guidance for an optimal heat
exchanger design.