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Analysis of thermal performance of polymer rotary regenerator
Ngoc-Vi Nguyen and Dong-Wook Oh
DOI: 10.32908/hthp.v48.703
A rotary regenerator is used to preheat incoming fresh air with waste heat recovered from exhaust flue gas in a thermal power plant. This study aims to evaluate and compare the heat transfer performance of regenerators made of metals and polymers. Thermal modeling of fluid flow on a flat plate is performed to simulate the conjugate heat transfer in a rotary regenerator. Counterflowing streams of hot flue gas and cold air are incorporated into the boundary conditions and initial conditions. The exit temperatures of hot and cold fluids are averaged to calculate the heat exchanger effectiveness under variation of the heat exchanger material and thicknesses of the flow channel and heat exchanger wall. A sensitivity analysis is also performed to determine the influence of material thermal conductivity and thermal mass on the heat exchanger effectiveness.
Keywords: rotary regenerator, polymer heat exchanger, computational fluid dynamics simulation (CFD).