TY - JOUR

T1 - Experimental Measurements of Fanning Friction Factors in Various Types of Additively Manufactured Compact Heat Exchangers

AU - Ranganayakulu, Chennu

AU - Fuchs, Marcos

AU - Kabelac, Stephan

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2025 Wiley Periodicals LLC.

PY - 2025/3/10

Y1 - 2025/3/10

N2 - In recent years, the advancement of the additive manufacturing (AM) process has become popular in making very complex shapes, including compact plate-fin heat exchangers. This provides considerable flexibility in creating a complex geometry, is cost-effective, and eliminates a variety of manufacturing processes in a compact heat exchanger (CHE). CHEs are known to have a high heat-transfer area per unit volume greater than 700 m2/m3, which can be achieved by using high-density fins whose hydraulic diameters vary between 1 and 3 mm, which is much higher than that of conventional manufacturing components. This study aims to measure accurate pressure-drop values by estimating the fanning friction factor f across four types of CHEs produced by an AM process. Four types of CHEs were manufactured using AM techniques by varying their internal geometry (secondary surfaces). All four types of CHEs were subjected to pressure-drop measurements using air as the fluid by establishing dedicated experimental facilities. The friction factor f was estimated at various air mass flow rates by varying the Reynolds number in the laminar region up to 1800. The friction factors were found to be 1.5–3 times higher than the conventional manufacture of CHEs. In addition, an attempt was made to understand the difference between the surface topography of the AM process CHE heat exchanger and that of the computational fluid dynamics model. The information provided in this paper is very useful for CHE designers and researchers to understand the implications of surface roughness due to the AM process for CHEs.

AB - In recent years, the advancement of the additive manufacturing (AM) process has become popular in making very complex shapes, including compact plate-fin heat exchangers. This provides considerable flexibility in creating a complex geometry, is cost-effective, and eliminates a variety of manufacturing processes in a compact heat exchanger (CHE). CHEs are known to have a high heat-transfer area per unit volume greater than 700 m2/m3, which can be achieved by using high-density fins whose hydraulic diameters vary between 1 and 3 mm, which is much higher than that of conventional manufacturing components. This study aims to measure accurate pressure-drop values by estimating the fanning friction factor f across four types of CHEs produced by an AM process. Four types of CHEs were manufactured using AM techniques by varying their internal geometry (secondary surfaces). All four types of CHEs were subjected to pressure-drop measurements using air as the fluid by establishing dedicated experimental facilities. The friction factor f was estimated at various air mass flow rates by varying the Reynolds number in the laminar region up to 1800. The friction factors were found to be 1.5–3 times higher than the conventional manufacture of CHEs. In addition, an attempt was made to understand the difference between the surface topography of the AM process CHE heat exchanger and that of the computational fluid dynamics model. The information provided in this paper is very useful for CHE designers and researchers to understand the implications of surface roughness due to the AM process for CHEs.

KW - compact heat exchangers

KW - heat transfer

KW - heat-transfer enhancement

KW - pressure drop

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=86000628694&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/htj.23319

DO - 10.1002/htj.23319

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:86000628694

JO - Heat Transfer

JF - Heat Transfer

SN - 2688-4534

ER -