The newly developed microchannel heat exchanger shows good performance on heat transfer and size reduction
The microchannel heat exchanger flow channel is created by chemical etching on metal plates.
The plates are gathered and diffusion bonded to produce heat exchangers as seen in microchannel heat exchanger. The typical hydraulic diameter of microchannel heat exchangeris sub-millimeter.
The small hydraulic diameter increases the heat transfer area and gives better heat transfer performance.
An important shortcoming of the small diameter is its high pressure drop.
A new flow channel configuration designated as S-shaped fin configuration has been developed to reduce the pressure drop .
Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (3D-CFD) revealed
that the pressure drop of S-shaped fin configuration is calculated
as one-seventh that of the conventional zigzag configuration.