Overview
ABSTRACT
The heat exchanger, key instrument for thermal or energy engineers, is a device which allows the temperature of a system or a substance to be controlled when exchanging heat from a medium to another. It is essential in many usual applications: heating, air-conditioning, refrigeration, electronic cooling, in process industries, in energy storage or for mechanical (or electrical) energy production in power plants. In a classical heat exchanger, a hot fluid exchanges a part of its enthalpy to a cold fluid. This type of heat exchanger will serve as a reference in this article to give definitions and parameters required for understanding phenomena and for sizing or rating. Other types of existing heat exchangers will also be mentioned.
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André BONTEMPS: Professor Emeritus - Geophysical and industrial flows laboratory (LEGI) - Joseph Fourier University, Grenoble, France - Update of the article [B 2 340] written by BONTEMPS (A.), GARRIGUE (A.) GOUBIER (Ch.), HUETZ (J.), MARVILLET (Ch.), MERCIER (P.), VIDIL (R.) in 1994 and updated by BONTEMPS (A.) in 2013
INTRODUCTION
The heat exchanger, a key tool for the thermic or energy engineer, controls the temperature of a system or product by exchanging heat between two media. Heat exchangers are indispensable in many everyday applications, including heating, air conditioning, refrigeration, electronic cooling, process engineering, energy storage and the production of mechanical (or electrical) energy from heat. In a conventional heat exchanger, a hot fluid transfers part of its enthalpy to a cold fluid. This type of exchanger serves as a basis for the definitions and parameters needed to design and understand the phenomena involved. Other types of heat exchanger also exist and are discussed here.
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KEYWORDS
| | | heating | cooling | | Thermic | process | energetic
Heat exchangers
General definitions
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