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tmoser12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
March 10, 2025
Question

Tube and fin heat exchanger

  • March 10, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 1044 views

I’m have a CFD project with an oil/water heat exchanger in a hydraulic tank. I would be studying how effective the cooler is at lowering the temperature of the oil over a given time so, it would be a transient analysis. The cooler has two cores with water looping through them in series. Each core has 182 copper tubes that are 0.4 mm thick and 170 aluminum fins that are 0.25 mm thick with a spacing of about 1.73 mm. I want to do cunjugate heat transfer across the solid geometry, but with so many components that are thin walled, the number of cells in the mesh woul be astronomical. 

 

I'm looking for suggestions on a basic approach to this analysis.  Can the tubes and fins be compressed to mid-surfaces and run in CFA? That would require fewer cells in the solid domains. I see that there is something buried in the mesher about two fluid heat exchangers, but I haven't been able to find information on how to utilize that. Some direction there would be helpful too.

 

 

tmoser_0-1741627432734.png

 

 

3 replies

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ProFeature16-Pearl
16-Pearl
March 13, 2025

Hi @tmoser 

 

Did you try the fluid study in Creo Simulation Live ?

Running Fluid Simulation Studies—Creo Simulation Live

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    cfdgeek13-Aquamarine
    13-Aquamarine
    June 10, 2025

    I don't believe 2 phase fluids and conjugate heat transfer can be modeled correctly using csl

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      anursinghCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      April 20, 2025

      Hi @tmoser,

       

      I wanted to see if you got the help you needed.

      If so, please mark the appropriate reply as the Accepted Solution. It will help other members who may have the same question.
      Of course, if you have more to share on your issue, please pursue the conversation. 

       

      Thanks,
      Anurag 

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      cfdgeek13-Aquamarine
      13-Aquamarine
      June 10, 2025

      Hello, This kind of simulation is straightforward, we dont need to use heat exchanger, we could mesh whole thing together. Please contact your ptc support and this will be solved through technique support from Simerics.  thanks.

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      cfdgeek13-Aquamarine
      13-Aquamarine
      June 10, 2025

      Oh i just notice your model has so many tubes, that may increase mesh count a lot. agreed, but just give it a try, we don't need to reduce the min mesh size a lot, try changing curvature control in the mesher to 5 degree etc to get better resolutions around the tubes, yes, just give it a try and see how big of the mesh you got. thanks

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