CFD modeling and optimal design of louvered fins heat exchangers using radical basis function

Abstract

Louvered fins heat exchanger is widely applied to chemical, energy, and refrigeration industries. The manuscript proposes a way for accurately and efficiently optimizing louvered fins heat exchangers. The louvered fin pitch, louvered fin height and louvered fin length are selected as main independent variable. The optimal structural parameters were extracted by CFD simulation, RBF and MOGA. The Colborn coefficient j and resistance coefficient f need to be optimized to be optimal. Using radical basis function (RBF) to find out approximation model, and the structure size is optimized by multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA). It shows that Colborn coefficient j reduces by 4 %, and resistance coefficient f reduces by 43 %. And the convection heat transfer is basically unchanged, when the flow resistent index is obviously reduced. Secondly, the effect of the optimized structure is analyzed in terms of pressure, velocity and temperature, and the optimization effect is further emphasized. Finally, the good performance of the optimization structure is further verified by the field synergy theory.

Keywords

• Heat exchanger
• Louvered fins
• CFD
• Multi-objective optimization
• Synergy angle