A CFD-based Virtual Test-rig for Rotating Heat Exchangers. (December 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Corsini, Alessandro; Delibra, Giovanni; Di Meo, Giulio; Martini, Mirko; Rispoli, Franco; Santoriello, Andrea
• Is Part Of: Energy procedia. Volume 82(2015)
• Page Start: 245
• Page End: 251
• Publication Date: 2015-12
• Subjects: rotating heat-exchanger -- Ljungström -- CFD -- synthetic methods -- OpenFOAM; Power resources -- Congresses; Power resources -- Periodicals; Power resources; Conference proceedings; Periodicals; 333.7905
• DOI: 10.1016/j.egypro.2015.12.029
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1876-6102

Abstract

Abstract: Rotating heat exchangers are used in steel industry, air conditioning and thermal power plants to pre-heat air used in steam generators or for waste heat recovery. Here we focus on a rotating heat exchanger on a so-called Ljungström arrangement operated in thermal power plants to pre-heat the air fed to the steam generators. In these devices the heat exchange between two fluids is achieved through a rotating matrix that gets in contact alternatively with the two fluid streams and acts as a thermal accumulator. To increase the heat capacity and the overall exchange surface, the rotating matrix is filled by a series of folded metal sheets. In the paper we de-scribe a methodology to account for the effects of the Ljungström in a virtual test-rig implemented in a Computational Fluid Dynamics environment. To this aim, a numerical model based on the work of Molinari and Cantiano was derived and implemented in the OpenFOAM library. RANS numerical results were compared with those of a mono-dimensional tool used by ENEL to design Ljungström heat exchangers and validated against available measurements in a real configuration of a thermal power plant.