Advanced Heat Exchanger (HEX) Scaling Methodologies for High-Performance Aircraft

ABSTRACT: The current state-of-the-art for heat exchanger (HEX) analysis and design relies on analytical approaches which are difficult to scale and highly empirical, thus making the ability to optimize advanced heat transfer devices improbable without comprehensive characterization efforts. The design standard for predicting heat exchanger performance is a set of empirical data developed more than 50 years ago by Kays and London. While this is an extensive set of data and has been useful for heat exchanger designs, it is applicable for point designs and does not provide an approach for extrapolating into new design spaces. HEXDesign provides a novel approach for accurately characterizing and scaling new HEX designs to facilitate timely trade studies of potential concepts and accelerate the typical timeframe from concept initiation to finished product. Scaling effects included in HEXDesign account for geometry, configuration, installation effects, materials, working fluids, and manufacturing. The proposed effort addresses thermal modeling requirements for HEXDesign, including improved I/O options, improved complex modeling capabilities, additional insight into execution errors, and additional options for defining heat transfer coefficients. These updates to HEXDesign will allow the software to be used to model complex heat exchangers within system modeling environments, such as Phoenix Integrations ModelCenter software. BENEFIT: HEXDesign provides the enabling technology, in the form of a computer tool, to design optimized heat exchangers for thermal management systems. It is a commercially marketable software package focused on meeting the thermal challenges facing air, ground, and space transportation in the 21st Century. HEXDesign provides customers with a user-friendly design optimization tool that may be applied in the design of heat exchangers for thermal management systems. HEXDesign provides SPIRITECH with a two-fold commercial market. First, this code may be marketed as an engineering tool to other aerospace and non-aerospace companies. Second, it provides SPIRITECH with an efficient engineering tool enabling it to develop high performance thermal management systems. As an analysis tool, it will be used by SPIRITECH in the development of cooled components and thermal management systems for commercial aerospace markets. Potential customers in this field include both military and commercial customers. Military customers include Air Force, Navy, Army, NASA and DARPA. Commercial customers include aircraft, propulsion, automotive, and power generation companies, as well as any company that uses heat exchangers to cool components.