Development and characterisation of Ti-6Al-4V additively manufactured compact counter-flow heat exchangers

Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, Central University of Technology, South Africa

^* Corresponding author: schubel@live.co.za

Abstract

Heat exchangers are an invaluable part of producing and managing energy. Additive manufacturing (AM) is an attractive technology for the manufacturing of compact heat exchangers. The study assesses the capability of AM for producing compact heat exchangers utilising current theory, with the paper reporting on the experimental characterisation results of additively manufactured Ti6Al4V heat exchangers [1]. A theoretical model was developed using Engineering Equation Solver (EES™) to size three heat exchangers with different channel sizes and the same target heat transfer capacity of 2 kW. The three heat exchangers were developed using CAD and manufactured at the Centre for Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing (CRPM). The testing and characterisation of the heat exchangers were conducted using a purpose-built test bench. The experimental results are validated against those from mathematical models and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations.