For a long time, heat exchanger designs have remained constant. However, as the advancements in 3D printing grow, it also facilitates the production of three-dimensional exchanger designers that were previously impractical. These new and innovative designs are comparatively more effective and efficient. But they still require particular software tools and design methods to manufacture high-performance devices.
Researchers have recently used metal 3D printing and topology optimization to design high-power, ultra-compact heat exchangers, demonstrating next-generation energy technology. They saw the need to unlock the new, high-performing heat exchangers; thus, they developed software tools to facilitate new 3D heat exchanger designs. The software would be massive development in Heat Exchanger Market as it would enable the identification of 3D designs that are an enhanced version of traditional techniques.
The need to create high-performing heat exchangers has been evident for a long time. This is mainly because heat exchangers are used in most essential industries like transportation, electronic, water, chemical, agriculture, manufacturing, agriculture construction, energy, petrochemical, and aerospace. So, the researchers aimed to develop such tools that would enable the building of new 3D heat exchanger designs as heat exchangers help transfer thermal energy in such industries from one medium to another.
They started by studying one type of exchanger known as a tube-in-tube heat exchanger to accomplish the task. The system consists of one tube that is nested within another tube. Tube-in-tube heat exchangers are usually used in building energy and drinking water systems. Herein, the team used a combination of additive manufacturing and shape optimization software to design fins that are internal to the tubes. The exciting part of the experiment is that the fins made are only possible through 3D printing.
The team stated that they designed, fabricated, and also tested their optimized tube-in-tube heat exchanger. The evidence showed that the developed heat exchanger had around 20 times higher volumetric power density than the current state-of-the-art tube-in-tube device used for commercial purposes.
Heat exchangers’ demand is increasing worldwide every day due to the constant attention the world governments and corporations pay to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Hence, the adoption of compact and efficient heat exchangers is coming into the limelight. This is especially so in industries where heat exchanger mass and size significantly affect rage, performance, and cost.