Abstract
Heat transfer characteristics of parallel-, counter-, and cross-flow microchannel heat exchangers are investigated numerically. The heat exchangers are modeled as a three-dimensional conjugate heat transfer problem. The working fluid is air. The governing equations are discretized by the finite volume method and SIMPLE algorithm is used to calculate the velocity field. The numerical results are compared among the heat exchangers with ε-NTU. Heat conduction in the partition wall deteriorates the effectiveness of the microchannel heat exchangers. In addition the parallel-, counter-, and cross-flow microchannel heat exchangers show similar trend with respect to the effectiveness.
