Abstract
Printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) is promising in the application of energy conversion system with its high compactness and efficiency. In this paper, the flow and heat transfer performance of supercritical carbon dioxide (SCO2) PCHE are numerically investigated with multiple channels and different channel lengths. The results show that the heat transfer performance of the Zigzag channel PCHE is increased more than 11% comparing to the wavy channel, while it brings more flow resistance. The pressure drop in the Zigzag cold and hot channels was about two and four times of the wavy channel, respectively. It is recommended for the wavy channel PCHE on account of its better overall performance factor than zigzag channel PCHE. Through the analyses of flow characters among multiple channels, it shows good homogeneity of flow distribution for the flow distribution coefficient in each channel close to 1.0, which is able to effectively avoid uneven flow distribution resulting in high local temperature of the heat exchanger. Furthermore, the overall performance of PCHEs with different core lengths are compared, presenting nearly 10% difference on the thermal efficiency.
