Experimental and Theoretical Analysis of Transient Response of Plate Heat Exchangers in Presence of Nonuniform Flow Distribution

Transient analysis helps us to predict the behavior of heat exchangers subjected to various operational disturbances due to sudden change in temperature or flow rates of the working fluids. The present experimental analysis deals with the effect of flow distribution on the transient temperature response for $U$-type and $Z$-type plate heat exchangers. The experiments have been carried out with uniform and nonuniform flow distributions for various flow rates. The temperature responses are analyzed for various transient characteristics, such as initial delay and time constant. It is also possible to observe the steady state characteristics after the responses reach asymptotic values. The experimental observations indicate that the $Z$-type flow configuration is more strongly affected by flow maldistribution compared to the $U$-type in both transient and steady state regimes. The comparison of the experimental results with numerical solution indicates that it is necessary to treat the flow maldistribution separately from axial thermal dispersion during modeling of plate heat exchanger dynamics.