High performance finned-tube heat exchangers based on filled polymer

This paper aims to check the possibility of substitute metal by filled thermoplastic materials for making finned-tube Heat Exchangers (for HVAC applications, heat recovery ...). The influence of low thermal conductivity of a filled polymer on the overall thermal performance of a compact finned-tube Heat Exchanger was numerically analyzed, via Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The effect of geometrical parameters such as the tube diameter, tube pitch, fin pitch and fin thickness on the compactness, mass, heat exchange duty, and pressure drop of the heat exchanger (of fixed initial dimensions) was highlighted. Finally, the numerical results showed that the low conductivity of such polymeric materials could be compensated by the optimization of geometric parameters to reach performances similar to those of a metallic compact HX.