1. Presentation

1.1 Thermal-hydraulic problem

In the heat exchanger industry, thermal-hydraulic problems primarily concern the thermal dimensioning of equipment.

The complexity of the heat exchanger thermal calculation problem stems from several factors:

• the wide variety of units (shell-and-tube, plate heat exchangers, etc.);

• the variety of flow regimes: single-phase in laminar or turbulent regime, with or without natural convection effect, two-phase in evaporation or condensation, condensation with or without incondensables, fluid mixtures, etc. ;

• the large number of flow configurations, which can go well beyond two fluids in the case of a compact exchanger,...