Experimental and statistical determination of thermal characteristics of the special design minichannel heat exchanger

The paper presents the results of experimental investigation and the new statistical method for the determination of pre-liminary thermal characteristics of a prototype compact minichannel heat exchanger with laminar flows and significant heat transfer in the manifolds. The exemplary heat exchanger consists of 9 straight, parallel, square-shaped channels and two rectangular-shaped manifolds milled on both sides of the single aluminium plate. The design of the investigated heat exchanger is quite particular, as the heat transfer area of both pairs of manifolds provides almost 1/3 of the total heat transfer area. In the new statistical method presented in this paper, the manifolds’ and channels’ heat flows are considered separately. The heat exchanger’s thermal characteristic was obtained statistically on the basis of the experimental results and is presented in the form of the overall heat transfer rate. The developed thermal characteristic model accounts for two effects, among many others, which may affect heat transfer in the exchanger, i.e. the heat loss to the ambient and the significant heat transfer in the manifolds. It is proved that the heat transfer to the surroundings was negligible due to the suitable thermal insulation. In order to demonstrate that the heat transfer in the manifolds is significant, two calculation variants are presented. The relative differences (residuals) between the experimental and statistically corrected heat transfer rates and the coefficient of determination R2 are determined in both variants. In the first variant the heat transfer in the manifold pairs is neglected and in the second model it is included. It was observed that the lack of consideration of the heat transfer in the manifold pairs provides drastic dispersion between the experimental and statistical results. In turn, in the second model, where the manifolds are accounted for, a significant enhancement in the consistency of the results is noticed. The relative residuals are much lower, and the corresponding coefficient R2 is improved from R2 = 0.8827 in the first variant to R2 = 0.9335 in the second one, respectively.