Cryogenics 91 (2018) 58–67

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Cryogenics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cryogenics

Research paper

Experimental study on the thermal hydraulic performance of plate-fin heat T

exchangers for cryogenic applications
⁎
Qingfeng Jianga,b, , Ming Zhuanga, Qiyong Zhanga, Zhigang Zhua, Maofei Genga,b, Linhai Shenga,
Ping Zhua
a
Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230031, China
b
University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Efficient and compact plate-fin heat exchangers are critical for large-scale helium liquefaction/refrigeration
Plate-fin heat exchanger systems as they constitute major part in the cold box. This study experimentally explores the heat transfer and
Helium refrigerator pressure drop behaviors of helium gas at low temperature in four types of plate-fin channels, namely offset-strip
Helium liquefier and perforated fins, with different geometrical parameters. A series of cryogenic experiments at approximately
Heat transfer
liquid nitrogen temperature are carried out to measure the Colburn j factors and Fanning friction f factors with a
Pressure drop
wide range of Reynolds number. Besides, to reveal the performance variations under different operating tem-
peratures, comparative experiments respectively conducted at room temperature and liquid nitrogen tempera-
ture are implemented. The results show that in comparison with the performance data at room temperature,
most of j factors are relatively smaller perhaps because the lower aluminum thermal conductivity and higher
Prandtl Number at low temperature. Meanwhile, the f factors corresponding to cryogenic conditions exhibit
slightly larger even though the core pressure drops show considerable reductions. In contrast to the calculated
results from the frequently-used performance curves (Chen and Shen, 1993), the Root Mean Squared Errors of j
and f values are correlated within 8.38% and 6.97% for one perforated fin core, 41.29% and 34.97% for three
OSF cores, respectively. For OSFs, further comparisons with the previous empirical correlations from literatures
are conducted to verify the accuracy of each correlation. Generally, most of the calculated results predict ac-
ceptably within the deviations of ± 25% for the j factors, while the predicted results express relatively large
deviations for the f factors. Therefore, it may be revealed that most of the existing correlations were not able to
accurately predict the experimental data in consideration of the performance differences under realistic cryo-
genic operating conditions, which could have significant influences during the design process of cryogenic heat
exchangers.

1. Introduction motivate researchers to study the thermal-hydraulic performance.

As a type of efficient and compact heat exchanger, the plate-fin heat
exchanger (PFHE) is widely employed in many industries including
cryogenics for air separation, large refrigeration systems, production of
petrochemicals, and natural gas liquefaction. The PFHE consists of a
block with alternating layers as plate-fins and every layer is separated
by parting sheets and restricted by side bars. In large-scale helium li-
quefaction/refrigeration systems, the hot helium gas in the high pres-
sure channels is cooled by the returning cold vapors through aluminum
PFHEs to remove the most of sensible heat. The performance and
compactness of PFHEs are critical for helium cryogenic systems because
they play key roles in the refrigeration cycle and occupy plenty of space
in the cold box. These great advantages of the PFHEs are the factors that
Therefore, a large amount of experimental and numerical studies have
been conducted on the characteristics of different plate-fin channels
and mostly focused on the normal media such as air, water and oil
under moderate and high temperature conditions. The thermal-hy-
draulic data of the PFHEs were given for plain [1], perforated [2,3],
offset-strip [4–15], louvered [16], wavy [17,18], vortex-generator
[19,20] and pin [21] fins. During the design process for helium cryo-
genic applications, the offset-strip fins (OSFs) chosen for heat transfer
fins can satisfy the requirements of higher thermal efficiency, larger
heat transfer area, less weight per unit volume and more excellent
structural strength. Additionally, as a type of frequently used fin cor-
rugations, the perforated fins featured by a low relative pressure drop
are usually used as distribution fins. Comparative performance

⁎
Corresponding author at: Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230031, China.
E-mail address: qfjiang@ipp.ac.cn (Q. Jiang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cryogenics.2018.02.006
Received 14 November 2017; Received in revised form 11 January 2018; Accepted 14 February 2018
Available online 16 February 2018
0011-2275/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Q. Jiang et al. Cryogenics 91 (2018) 58–67

Nomenclature tf fin thickness, [mm]

U overall heat transfer coefficient, [W m−2 K−1]
A overall heat transfer area, [m2] Vfree free flow volume, [m3]
Af the secondary heat transfer area, [m2] W electric power input, [W]
Afr minimum flow area, [m2]
Asurface wetted surface area, [m2] Greek symbols
cp specific heat capacity, [J kg−1 K−1]
Dh hydraulic diameter, [m] δ uncertainty of the variable, [–]
f fanning friction factor, [–] η0 heat transfer surface efficiency, [–]
G mass flux, [kg m−2 s−1] ηf fin efficiency, [–]
h heat transfer coefficient, [W m−2 K−1] λ thermal conductivity, [W m−2 K−1]
hf fin height, [mm] μ dynamic viscosity, [Pa s−1]
j Colburn factor, [–] ρ density, [kg m−3]
L heat exchanger core length, [m] ω maximum velocity in the free flow area, [m s−1]
lf interrupted length, [mm]
ṁ mass flow rate, [kg s−1] Subscripts
nrow number of perforations, [–]
Nu Nusselt number, [–] Al aluminum plate
p pressure, [Pa] cal calculation
Pr Prandtl number, [–] Cu cooper plate
Q̇ heat transfer rate, [W] exp experiment
rf radius of perforations, [m] f fin
Re Reynolds number, [–] He helium gas
sf fin space, [mm] in inlet
T temperature, [K] m mean
ΔTLMTD logarithmic mean temperature difference, [K] out outlet
tAl aluminum plate thickness, [m] w wall
tCu cooper plate thickness, [m]

assessments of different fin channels have also been compared by taking
account of various fin geometrical structures and working fluids
[22–26].
However, for cryogenic fluids, which are affected not only by the
thermal properties of fluids and fin geometrical structures but also by
the lower thermal conductivities of metal materials at low temperature,
few reports were published on the heat transfer and pressure drop
performance in the plate-fin channels. The fin performance data ob-
tained by the previous investigations about the thermal-hydraulic
characteristics at air side were arbitrarily employed in the design pro-
cess of cryogenic heat exchangers, which might lead to the in-
appropriate selection of fin-surface and estimation of heat transfer area.
Yang et al. [27] numerically investigated the heat transfer behaviors of
cryogenic media including gaseous and liquid nitrogen (GN2: 80–81 K,
LN2: 77–78 K), hydrogen (GH2: 21.5–22.5 K, LH2: 19.45–19.95 K) and
helium-4 (G4He: 4.5–4.8 K, L4He: 4–4.2 K) in OSF channels. They found
that the lower thermal conductivity of metal materials at low tem-
perature causes a considerable reduction in heat transfer performance
especially for the fluids with high Prandtl number. Cao et al. [28] es-
tablished an experimental setup of a single-stage cryogenic cycle to
study the heat transfer performance of mixed refrigerant including N2,
CH4, C2H4, C3H8 and C4H10 in a customized PFHE. These experiments
were conducted at about 113 K and they found most of the existing
condensation and flow boiling correlations were not able to predict the
heat transfer coefficients correctly. Recently, experimental test facilities
with helium as working fluid cooled to LN2 temperature were built in
order to measure the performance of assembled aluminum PFHEs by
Doohan et al. [29] and Goyal et al. [30].
To the best of authors’ knowledge, experimental study about the
thermal-hydraulic characteristics of different plate-fin channels under
realistic cryogenic conditions, especially for helium refrigeration/re-
frigeration systems, is not available in the open literature. This is due to
the measuring difficulties of heat transfer coefficients of cryogenic
fluids in various fin cores, the great costs considering the complexity of
experimental apparatus, the guarantee of the high purity and low
leakage rate of cryogenic helium gas. The present study is published to
experimentally explore the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of cryo-
genic helium gas in OSF and perforated fin channels. Additionally,
comparative experiments of electrically heating helium gas in OSF
channels at room temperature and LN2 temperature would be con-
ducted to reveal the performance variations under different operating
conditions. Finally, the experimental performance data would be
compared with the prediction results calculated by the well-known
correlations and corresponding discussions would also be given.
2. Experimental apparatus
The process schematic diagram of the designed and fabricated ex-
perimental setup, shown in Fig. 1, mainly includes eight sections: i.
Helium screw compressor, ii. Oil separation and corresponding filtering
system, iii. Heat exchange units cooled by LN2 including two PFHEs, iv.
The electrically heated test core matrix, v. Vacuum pump system, vi.
Gas recovery-purification plant, vii. Control instruments and viii.
Measurement and data acquisition system. Helium was adopted as a
working fluid in the test loop. To get the actual performance data at low
temperature, LN2 was used for cooling the incoming helium to reach
nearly 77.3 K. The cooling units, test section and corresponding mea-
suring control-alarm equipment were installed inside the cold box with
multi-layer insulation and high vacuum.
2.1. Compressor and oil removal filters
The commercial-grade oil flooded helium screw compressor, ESD
442 SFC, KAESER, was set to accelerate the helium cycle. To avoid the
motor damage and the carbonization of lubricating oil due to the high
exit temperature of the compressor, tap water was used to cool the oil.
To guarantee the purity of test gas and avoid blocking the tube, oil
impurities were reduced to ppb level through the separators and
charcoal absorber. Meanwhile, the content of moisture and solid par-
ticles was decreased greatly via the charcoal absorber and molecular

59
Q. Jiang et al. Cryogenics 91 (2018) 58–67

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of experimental system.

sieves. The exhaust temperature of the system was maintained below
313 K under the action of the water pre-cooler.
2.2. Heat exchange units
To investigate the performance of the cryogenic gas, LN2 was ef-
fectively used for cooling the incoming helium through two PFHEs. The
first heat exchanger (EX-1), which was used to cool the room tem-
perature, high pressure stream and bring the exit helium and nitrogen
streams back to the ambient temperature, was constituted by 21 cir-
culation channels consisting of 9, 8, 2, 2 layers, respectively for the inlet
helium, outlet helium, nitrogen stream and reinforcing plies. The
second heat exchanger (EX-2), characterized by the heat transfer be-
havior of LN2 boiling, served as a gas-to-fluid phase-change exchanger
to cool the helium gas to nearly LN2 temperature. Considering the
limited space of the existing cold box, a cylindrical vessel with
1650 mm height and 520 mm inner diameter, two exchangers were
designed to fit within the dimensions of

Fig. 2. Schematic drawing of the test apparatus.

60
Q. Jiang et al.
1400 mm × 150 mm × 151.9 mm and 400 mm × 100 mm × 142.3 mm
(Length × Height × Width). Inclined nozzle configurations were
adopted to connect stainless piping to the brazed aluminum PFHEs with
aluminum-steel transition joints to make the space available in cross-
section. Proper bonding techniques and adequate testing means had
been applied during the process of product manufacture.
2.3. Test section
Four aluminum plate-fin test cores with offset strip fins and perfo-
rated fins were used to measure the thermal hydraulic performance for
helium gas under realistic cryogenic conditions. The test section, shown
schematically in Fig. 2, was based on a symmetrical structure consisting
of encircling insulated polyurethane boards (thermal conductivity, less
than 0.024 W/m K), two film electrical heaters (resistance per unit area,
1613.3 Ω/m2), two copper plates and the test core matrix. The bonding
interfaces between copper plates and the test cores were specified to be
a roughness value lower than ± 0.5 mm and then coated with thermal
greases (Apiezon, N). Uniform heat flux produced by film heaters was
imposed on the copper plates with high thermal conductivity, which
could be adjusted by a high precision voltage regulator. Sixteen Pla-
tinum Resistance Sensors (PT-100 sensors, Class-A) daubed with
thermal greases were installed in the drilled through-holes on the plates
to measure the surface temperature distributions in the flow direction.
Four C-clamps and polyimide tape were used to hold any contact sur-
faces of each part as close as possible. The whole section was wrapped
with at least 30 layers of aluminized Mylar super-insulation to minimize
the heat transfer from ambient. The geometrical configurations of dif-
ferent fin channels were listed in Table 1 and the external dimensions of
these PFHE cores were 500 × 150 mm (Length × Width) with height
ranging from 36.3 to 37.9 mm. The test matrix consisted of fins, cover
plates and side bars (Al-3003 coated with Al-4004), nozzles and pipes
(Al-5083). In order to make flow distribution in the transverse direction
more uniform, diversion channels were placed inside two ends of the
test section. On the basis of satisfying the intensity, enough gaps were
reserved for Thermal Resistance Detectors (RTDs) and pressure taps.
These calibrated RTDs with PT-100 sensors installed in the protective
casings were placed inside the test core to measure the flow tempera-
ture directly. Pressure taps connected with the gap passage were
welded to measure the core pressure drop without regard to the effect
of entrance and exit. After assembly and stacking together, these PFHE
cores were brazed in a vacuum furnace at about 600 °C. Subsequently,
nozzles and pipes were TIG welded. For the above two PFHEs and four
test cores, pneumatic testing was carried out by water injection to keep
pressure at approximately 18.2 bar and the results of helium leak
testing were found to be better than 10−9 Pa m3/s by helium mass
spectrometer leak detector. Fig. 3 depicted the welded cold box piping
with three heat exchange units, and the cold box wrapped with alu-
minized Mylar super-insulation.
2.4. Measurement and data acquisition system
To measure the thermal hydraulic performance of these fin cores
with respect to a wide range of Reynolds number, two calibrated mass
flow controllers (MFCs, HASTINGS HFC-307 and BRONKHORST F-
106CI-AGD-03-V) for helium gas at different measurement range were
Table 1
Geometrical configurations of the test cores (mm).
Fin codes Fin type Fin height, hf Fin space, sf Fin thickness, t f
47JC1402 OSFs 4.7 1.4 0.2
65JC1403 OSFs 6.5 1.4 0.3
95JC1402 OSFs 9.5 1.4 0.2
65DK1402 Perforated 6.5 1.4 0.2
61
Cryogenics 91 (2018) 58–67
used. Meanwhile, totally 29 temperature sensors, including 25 Class-A
PT-100 sensors and 4 platinum RTDs calibrated at liquid nitrogen
temperature, were connected in four-wire configuration to eliminate
connection evocative errors and improve the measurement precision.
Furthermore, the signals of temperature, pressure, mass flow rate and
power were collected by a series of Programmable Logic Controllers
(PLCs). After communicating with the monitoring computer, these
measurement results could be recorded and displayed by a compiled
program based on LabVIEW 2014. During each experiment, the monitor
and alarm system about the inlet temperature of the test core was run to
guarantee the whole test device’s temperature at approximately
78.7–125 K.
3. Experiment description
3.1. Test procedure
Fig. 4 showed the photograph of the main experimental apparatus.
For the cryogenic test loop, oil flooded screw compressor having oil
separators inside was used to compress helium gas to approximately
14 bar with oil content less than 100 ppm. After going through the
external oil removal and filtering system, oil impurities were reduced to
ppb level. In the same time, H2O impurities and solid particles were also
filtered significantly. Subsequently, part of high pressure (HP) stream
expanded to atmospheric pressure through the bypass throttle valve,
and then the other part of HP stream entered the heat exchange units
through two bellows sealed control valves with different flow regula-
tion performance and two mass flow controllers with different mea-
surement ranges. The HP stream going through the experimental fa-
cility could be divided into two parts because of the requirements for
mass flow measurement accuracy resulted from a wide range of Rey-
nolds number (434.6–10511). The part of HP stream passed through the
EX-1, EX-2, test core and finally it got expanded in the throttle valve.
The 500 L LN2 Dewar was used to supply cold load. The air cooler was
set up to warm the cold N2 in the cooling process to avoid affecting the
vortex flowmeter, whereas the exit temperature of N2 was maintained
at room temperature through the EX-1 and EX-2 during steady-state
operations.
Before the experiment started, the residual gas in the pipe was
evacuated through the rotary mechanical pump for fear of large
quantities of gaseous impurities entering the system. Then the HP
stream with fixed flow rate flowed into the system continuously. Soon
afterwards, the EX-1, EX-2 as well as test core began cooling down from
the room temperature due to the continuous input of LN2. After the heat
exchange units achieved steady state, rated electric power was input in
two film heaters to rise approximately 10 K for the helium stream.
When achieving steady-state condition, measurements were carried out
to record the data profiles of temperature and pressure. The mass flow
rate above 6 g/s was varied by adjusting the opening of the control
valve (DN25/PN16), bypass valve and throttle valve. By comparison,
the mass flow rate lower than 6 g/s was changed by closing the control
valve (DN25/PN16) and adjusting the control valve (DN15/PN16) as
well as other related valves. Besides, the LN2 flux and electric power
input were changed along with the flow rate variations to guarantee the
inlet operating temperature below 115 K and temperature increment
about 10 K. Every time the flow changed, the temperature and pressure
Interrupted length, l f Cover plate thickness Side bar width
3 15.8 25
3 15 25
3 14.2 25
(Porosity, 10%) 15 25
Q. Jiang et al. Cryogenics 91 (2018) 58–67

Fig. 3. The cold box piping with three heat exchange units (a. without super-insulation, b. with aluminized Mylar super-insulation).

Fig. 4. Photographs of the main experimental apparatus.

parameters altered and the system reached new steady-state level.
When all signals maintained stable with values ± 1% for over five
minutes and the heat balance error kept less than 5%, every sampling
data would be recorded three times at intervals to validate the results
reproducibility. The heat balance error in the above criteria could be
defined as:
̇ W
Q−
Heat Balance Error = × 100%
W (1)
where Q̇ and W represented the heat transfer rate for the cold helium
flowing through the fin channel and electric power input, respectively.
It took at least 40 min to reach a steady state at each measuring point.
In this way, the profile data of temperature and pressure for different
mass flow rates could be recorded.
3.2. Data reduction
Due to the periodic fully developed flow in the section of fin array,
the average heat transfer coefficient, hHe , could approach a constant
value. The whole thermal resistance could be written as:

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Q. Jiang et al. Cryogenics 91 (2018) 58–67

Table 2 Table 3
Range of measurement devices and uncertainty values. Overall uncertainties of the main parameters.

Test devices Test Accuracy/uncertainty Full scale Parameter Uncertainty

parameters
Reynolds number ± 2.58%
Mass flow controller, Mass flow rate ± 1.0% F.S 0–6 g/s Fin efficiency ± 1.55%
HASTINGS Nusselt number ± 8.28%
Mass flow controller, Mass flow rate ± 1.0% F.S 0–45 g/s Colburn factor ± 13.00%
BRONKHORST Fanning friction factor ± 5.20%
Platinum resistance Temperature ± (0.15 + 0.002|t|) °C −259 to
sensors 600 °C
Thermal resistance Temperature ± 0.1 °C −213 to respectively in detail:
detectors 127 °C
Pressure sensors Pressure ± 0.075% 0–16 bar 4(sf −t f )(hf −t f ) lf
Differential pressure Differential ± 0.075% 0–120 kPa D h, OSF =
2[(sf −t f ) lf + (hf −t f ) lf + (hf −t f ) t f ] + (sf −t f ) t f (10)
sensors pressure

4sf hf L
D h,perforated =
1 1 2tAl 2tCu 2sf L + 2hf L−2nrow πr f2 + 2nrow π 2rf t f (11)
= + +
UA hHe Aη0 λAl AAl λ Cu ACu (2)
The Fanning friction f factor [31] could also be estimated from the
In this equation, the first term represented the total thermal re- pressure drop Δp :
sistance between the heated surface and the bulk fluid, where U re-
Dh ρm ⎡ 2Δp 1 1
presented the average overall heat transfer coefficient. The latter two f= −2 ⎛⎜ − ⎞⎟ ⎤
terms were the thermal resistances of two cooper plates and aluminum 4L ⎢ ρ
⎣ m
2 2
ω ⎝ ρout ρ ⎥
in ⎠ ⎦ (12)
cover plates, where t and λ were thickness and thermal conductivity
where ρ was the working fluid density with suffixes out, in and m re-
with corresponding abbreviation’s suffixes. The second term was the
presenting outlet, inlet and mean state points respectively. L was the
thermal resistance associated with convection, where the heat transfer
flow length and w denoted the maximum velocity in the free flow area
surface efficiency, η0 , was related to the fin efficiency:
of fin core,
(1−ηf ) Af
η0 = 1− G
A (3) ω=
Afr ρm (13)
tanh(ml ) 2hHe hf
where ηf = ml
, m= and l = 2
−t f .
λf t f
The heat transfer coefficient, U, was estimated from the ratio of the 3.3. Uncertainty analysis
heat transfer rate to the total surface area, A , and logarithmic mean
temperature difference, ΔTLMTD , between the heated surface and the The ranges and accuracies of measurement devices were listed in
fluid in the fin channel: Table 2 for reference. The uncertainties propagating from each of the
Q̇ measured variables, Xi , into the value of the calculated quantity, Y,
U= were calculated by Root-Sum-Square method from the following
AΔTLMTD (4)
equation:
Q̇ = mc
̇ p (THe,out −THe,in ) (5) 2 1/2
⎡ ∂Y ⎤
δY = ⎢∑ ⎛ δX ⎞
∂X i ⎥
⎜ ⎟

(Tw−THe,in )−(Tw−THe,out ) ⎣ i ⎝ i ⎠⎦ (14)

ΔTLMTD =
ln[(Tw−THe,in )/(Tw−THe,out )] (6)
where δ represented the uncertainty of the variable. Derived from Eqs.
where ṁ , cp , Tw , THe,in and THe,out respectively represented the mass flow (7) and (12), the uncertainties of j factor and f factor could be estimated
rate, specific heat, average heated wall temperature, inlet and outlet as follows:
fluid temperature through the test channel. The fluid properties such as 2 2 2 1/2
1 Nu Nu
cp and μ were evaluated at mean temperature and pressure. The thermal δj = ⎡ ⎛ δNu ⎞ + ⎛ 2 1/3 δRe ⎞ + ⎛ δPr ⎞ ⎤
performance could be expressed in terms of a dimensionless heat ⎢
⎣ ⎝ RePr
1/3
⎠ ⎝ Re Pr ⎠ ⎝ 3RePr 4/3
⎠⎥ ⎦ (15)
transfer coefficient, Colburn j factor: 2
2
⎧ ⎛ Dh ⎡ D Δp Dh D ⎤
Nu δf = δΔp ⎟⎞ + ⎢ ⎜⎛ h 2 2 + − h ⎟⎞ δ ρ
2Lρout 2Lρin ⎠ m ⎥
⎜
j= ⎨ ⎝ 2Lρm ω2 ⎠ 2Lρm ω
Re Pr 1/3 (7) ⎩ ⎣ ⎝ ⎦
2 2 2 1/2
where Nu, Re and Pr meant the Nusselt number, Reynolds number and D Δp Dh ρm Dh ρm ⎫
Prandtl number, respectively. The Reynolds number could be calculated + ⎜⎛ h 3 δω ⎟⎞ + ⎜⎛ 2
δ ρout ⎟⎞ + ⎜⎛ δ ⎞
2 ρin ⎟ ⎬
Lρ
⎝ m ω ⎠ ⎝ 2Lρ ⎠ ⎝ 2Lρ ⎠⎭
by the mass flux, G:
out in (16)

GDh Similarly, each of the above measured variables could be derived

Re = successively. In detail, the uncertainties of fluid thermal-physical
μ (8)
properties associated with temperature and pressure were ignored due
The generalized expression of the hydraulic diameter for the plate- to the real-time call of HEPAK [32]. The empirical correlations for the
fin channels was given by: thermal conductivity of Aluminum (AL3003) and OFHC cooper were
4Vfree obtained from NIST [33]. Notably, the correlation for AL3003
Dh = showed ± 2% curve fit error relative to data. Taking the accuracy levels
Asurface (9)
of these sensors, the uncertainty analysis were carried out using EES
where Vfree meant the free flow volume and Asurface represented the software [34]. The average uncertainties of the estimated parameters
wetted surface area. The hydraulic diameter expressions based on Eq. were presented in Table 3. It might be noted that for the j factor
(8) for OSF [10] and perforated [25] plate-fin channels were as follows measurements, the overall ± 13% uncertainty was larger than the ±

63
Q. Jiang et al.
Table 4
Operating conditions and process parameters for each group of tests.
Group no. Test object Mass flow rate (g/s) Inlet temperature (K)
1 65DK1402 1.3–30.7 104.5–114.9
2 47JC1402 2.6–29.4 78.6–115.0
3 65JC1403 2.85–29.3 80.2–114.7
4 95JC1402 2.3–29.9 78.2–115.2
5 47JC1402 1.9–24.3 311.3–339.7
Fig. 5. Variations of test parameters during the cryogenic experiment for the 4th group of experiments.
5% uncertainty in the steam-to-air tests at room temperature reported
by Kays and London [1]. This was because, in contrast with the use of
large amounts of iron-constantan thermocouples in the steam-to-air
tests, temperature measurements under cryogenic conditions became
much trickier, especially for measuring the bulk fluid with limited ca-
librated RTDs. Due to the less influence from temperature measure-
ments, the ± 5.2% uncertainty for the f factor measurements seemed
acceptable, compared with the ± 5% uncertainty in the steam-to-air
tests.
4. Results and discussion
Both heat transfer and pressure drop data for fin array patterns
could be obtained from experiments at the same time. Due to the great
latent heat in the high vacuum insulated cold box, each group of
cryogenic experiments was conducted at steady state after slow cooling
process from approximately 300–78.7 K. Table 4 showed the range of
different operating conditions for all five experiments. Taking the 4th
set of experiments illustrated in Table 4 as an example, the changing
curves of inlet temperature (TI105), inlet pressure (PI102), total flow
rate (FI101 + FI102), as well as differential pressure (DPI103) were
shown in Fig. 5. The regions between two vertical dashed lines con-
tained seven sample points. During each period of sample points, the
flow rate varied along with the change of the LN2 flux and electric
power input to make the most of operating temperature lower than
115 K. As depicted in Fig. 5, even though it had already been a long
cooling process, the period of first few experiments still took longer
than the following ones, which implied that the cold box was not
chilled thoroughly when the experiments began and part of refrigerant
capacity was used to cool the hot assembly units.
In contrast to the experiments about the thermal-hydraulic perfor-
mance in OSF channels under cryogenic conditions, comparative ex-
periments of electrically heating helium gas at normal temperature
were conducted to reveal the performance differences under different
operating conditions. For the test core #47JC1402, the 5th group of
64
Cryogenics 91 (2018) 58–67
Inlet absolute pressure (bar) Electric power input (W) Re number
1.5–7.9 67–1452 434.6–7727
3.3–10.5 127–1413 1022–10511
2.1–8.4 145–1337 681.9–7012
4.4–6.4 115–1367 543.8–5950
3.9–10.8 86–1164 359.5–4231
experiments operating at room temperature were supplemented and
variations of measured parameters including temperature, pressure and
total flow rate were indicated in Fig. 6. Different from the low tem-
perature experiments characterized by maintaining heat balance be-
tween electric power input and refrigerant capacity supplied by LN2,
experiments at room temperature didn’t exist slow cooling process. In
every test interval, electric power input was increased monotonously
with the increase of the exit temperature from the cold box such as
TIC109, which indicated that the operating temperatures of the test
core were higher than the ambient temperature. But finally thermal
conditions would achieve relative balances. Additionally, the trends of
the total flow rate in two experiments were converse along with time,
which was attributed to the requirements of smaller operating tem-
perature rise in the normal temperature experiments. It might also be
noted that even though the screw compressor had run at full capacity,
the flow rate of compressed helium gas could just reach 24.92 g/s at
normal temperatures for comparison with 29.47 g/s at cryogenic con-
ditions. This was because the helium gas viscosity decreased along with
the decline in temperature, thus led to the decline in the pressure drop
inside the cold box and accordingly lightened helium compressor load.
Fig. 7 depicted comparative results of j factors and f factors vs Re
Numbers under normal temperatures and low temperatures. Mean-
while, the error bars derived from uncertainty analysis were also given.
It could be seen from Fig. 7 that on account of the lower viscosity μ and
larger gas flow, cryogenic experiments could cover wider Re Numbers
ranging from 1022 to 10,511 in comparison with normal temperature
experiments involving from 359.5 to 4231. It's worth noting that most
of j factors under cryogenic conditions were relatively smaller than the
values measured at room temperature, which probably be affected by
both lower thermal conductivity of Al3003 and higher Prandtl Number
at low temperatures. Moreover, though the pressure drops in the test
core under cryogenic conditions were much lower, all the f factors at
low temperature were slightly larger than the values at room tem-
perature. This result might be influenced by the increase of gas density
with the decrease in temperature. Because the definition of f factor in
Q. Jiang et al. Cryogenics 91 (2018) 58–67

Fig. 6. Comparative heating experiments under room temperature (a) and low temperature (b) for #47JC1402.

Fig. 8. Colburn j factor and Fanning friction f factor vs Re for test core #65DK1402.
Fig. 7. Comparative results of thermal-hydraulic performance under normal temperature
and low temperature for #47JC1402.
Four types of plate-fin cores were tested under different mass flow
rates, ranging from 1.27 g/s to 31.04 g/s. The cryogenic test results
Eq. (12) could be simplified as follows if the correction in fluid density
were presented as j factors and f factors vs Re Numbers for all test cores
changes was ignored,
as shown in Figs. 8–11. For the perforated fins, the j and f factors were
2 deduced to examine the predicting abilities of the frequently-used
Dh 2ΔpAfr performance curves from Chen and Shen [35], which were fitted by the
f= ρ
4L G 2 (17) limited numbers of normal temperature experimental data introduced

65
Q. Jiang et al. Cryogenics 91 (2018) 58–67

Table 6
RMSEs between the experimental data and correlations’ predictions.

RMSEs (%) Correlations

Kays and Manson [11] Wieting [12] Mochizuki et al.

London [1] [13]

j 27.76 14.94 21.19 32.67

f 30.92 29.97 37.04 30.06

Joshi and Dubrovsky and Manglik and Kim et al. [7]

Webb [9] Vasiliev [14] Bergles [10]

j 18.77 16.55 20.96 27.18

f 45.58 28.42 30.21 36.70

Fig. 9. Colburn j factor and Fanning friction f factor vs Re for test core #47JC1402.

Fig. 12. Comparisons of predicted and experimental Colburn j factors for OSFs.
Fig. 10. Colburn j factor and Fanning friction f factor vs Re for test core #65JC1403.

Fig. 11. Colburn j factor and Fanning friction f factor vs Re for test core #95JC1402.
Fig. 13. Comparisons of predicted and experimental Fanning friction f factors for OSFs.

Table 5
Deviations of j and f values between the measured data and calculated results.
disturbance associated with perforated fins. For the OSFs, the j and f
factors were compared with the values calculated by the performance
Fin codes Deviations curves depicted by Chen and Shen [35]. The deviations between the
measured j, f values and the calculated results were tabulated in
j f
Table 5. The Root Mean Squared Errors
n 2
65DK1402 8.38% 6.97% ⎛RMSEs = ∑i = 1 [(x cal − x exp) / x exp] ⎞ of j and f values for OSFs were cor-
⎜ ⎟

47JC1402 48.25% 8.79% n

⎝ ⎠
65JC1403 25.99% 30.05% related within 41.29% and 34.97%. Generally, the performance varia-
95JC1402 18.82% 44.30% tions were deeply influenced by different fin structures. In addition, the
deviations between the performance data could be caused by various
properties of fluid and metal under various operating temperatures,
from ALEX in Kobelco. The experimental data agreed well with the
different boundary conditions as well as the longitudinal heat conduc-
predicted results, and the RMSEs of performance data were less than
tion along the flow direction in the test core especially at low tem-
8.38% and 6.97% respectively for j and f values. This might be caused
perature. Furthermore, some tiny machining deformation in the fin
by similar fin shapes in test cores, as well as smaller-scale flow
geometry, burred edges and varied dimensions due to the practical

66
Q. Jiang et al.
manufacturing might cause the structure deviations of the used test
cores in different experiments.
To examine the prediction accuracy with the experimental data of
the OSFs listed in Table 1, different predicted correlations reported by
Kays and London [1], Manson [11], Wieting [12], Mochizuki et al.
[13], Joshi and Webb [9], Dubrovsky and Vasiliev [14], Manglik and
Bergles [10] as well as Kim et al. [7] were calculated based on the
definitions of their own expressions. The RMSEs of the percent differ-
ences were given in Table 6. Meanwhile, the predicted results of these
correlations could be extracted from Figs. 12 and 13 respectively, with
the dashed lines representing ± 25% errors. For the j factors, it could be
observed that most of the predicted results were concentrated in the
range of ± 25%, which implied that part of these correlations were
relatively suitable for predicting heat transfer performance of low
temperature helium gas in OSF channels. However, for the f factors, the
deviations of the predicted abilities were more evident. This indicated
that in consideration of the cryogenic work conditions and the actual
manufacturing techniques, most of the existing correlations were not
able to accurately predict the experimental data. Therefore, more ex-
perimental studies as well as numerical investigations were needed to
further summarize the general performance of OSF channels under
cryogenic operating conditions.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, a comparative experimental study of thermal-hy-
draulic performance was carried out taking helium gas as working fluid
for four types of plate-fin channels, namely OSF and perforated fins,
with different geometrical parameters. The experimental investigation
enriched the test data of the plate-fin surfaces under cryogenic oper-
ating conditions at approximately LN2 temperature. The Colburn j
factors and Fanning friction f factors were presented for a wide range of
Reynolds number. To reveal performance variations under different
operating temperatures, a set of comparative experiments was con-
ducted at room temperature and LN2 temperature, respectively. The
following conclusions were drawn from this work.
i. The thermal-hydraulic performance for #47JC1402 represented
slight different characteristics respectively at room and low tem-
peratures. Most of j factors under cryogenic conditions were rela-
tively smaller. This performance deterioration might be attributed
to the lower thermal conductivity of Al3003 and higher Prandtl
Number at low temperature. Moreover, all the f factors corre-
sponding to cryogenic conditions showed slightly larger due to the
increase of gas density.
ii. For perforated fins, the cryogenic experimental data agreed well
with the predicted results and the RMSEs of performance data were
less than 8.4%. For OSFs, the experimental data under cryogenic
conditions represented various changes comparing with the calcu-
lated results from the existing correlations. Taking the deviations
of ± 25% for consideration, many calculated results predict accep-
tably for the j factors while the differences seemed larger for the f
factors.
iii. Various fin geometrical structures and internal flow regimes under
cryogenic operating conditions had important effects on cryogenic
heat transfer and pressure drop performance for plate-fin channels.
Four types of fin cores frequently used in large-scale helium lique-
faction/refrigeration systems were experimented at low tempera-
ture. However, in order to obtain general performance correlations
for various plate-fin channels, additional work should be under-
taken to explore the characteristics of fin cores systematically and
abundantly.
67
Cryogenics 91 (2018) 58–67
Acknowledgements
The test platform was financed by Institute of Plasma Physics,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. The authors express their great
appreciation to the EAST cryogenic group for their help.
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