熱交換器内の多分岐管路における流動解析

抄録

Inside of the heat exchanger of automobile, first the water flow comes into the inlet chamber and streams into many branch passages. Through these passages, the hot water is cooled by the surrounded air. Then the cooled water merges into the outlet chamber and flow out from the heat exchanger. As the heat exchanger is consisted of bends and tubes, the flow field in the heat exchanger is very complicated because of the presence of flow reversal and separation. Only a few reports are available to date concerning the mal-distribution of the flow rate and the technical remedy to obtain uniform flow distribution. This study aims to predict the flow patterns in a heat exchanger. Flow visualization, velocity measurement and numerical analysis are applied to the water flow in the tube array model. The results in laminar flow region show that the flow rates and patterns in tube array greatly depend on the mutual position of the tube arrays to the flow inlet and outlet of the model. It is shown that the uniform flow distribution in each branch passage can be realized by increasing the volume of the outlet chamber.