DOI: 10.1615/ICHMT.2015.IntSympAdvComputHeatTransf
ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-429-8
ISSN: 2578-5486
CHT FOR HEAT-EXCHANGER DESIGN; PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
ABSTRACT
The first demonstration that computational heat transfer could assist the designers of heat exchangers was made by Suhas Patankar and myself in 1974. By the end of the decade, CHT had proved its practical value by helping to analyse and cure the flow-related problems that ailed the steam generators of water-cooled nuclear-power reactors. CHT was soon also being applied to steam condensers, so as to predict the steeply-varying distributions of vapour-phase composition within their shells.
For the design of more conventional heat exchangers, however, CHT is even now rarely used. Computer-software packages are employed; but they embody pre-CHT design methods. The world-wide cost, in terms of excessive investment and running expenses, and of global warming, would surely be regarded as unacceptable if it were ever calculated and publicised.