1995 年 15 巻 Supplement1 号 p. 89-92
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. 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 flowin 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.