Experimental performance evaluation of tubular manifold heat exchanger

The present work demonstrates the use of manifold microchannel technology in conjunction with conventional macrogeometries to achieve superior performance compared to traditional heat exchangers. A novel tubular manifold heat exchanger is designed using three-dimensional (3D) printed manifold and conventional double enhanced tube. The experiments are performed using water as the working fluid and the manifold side heat transfer coefficient up to 9538Wm^-2K^-1 with a low flowrate of 4.25 lpm is achieved with as low pressure drop as 323 Pa. A comparison with respect to thermal hydraulic performance of the results with a plate heat exchanger shows clear advantage of the proposed exchanger. Overall, microscale heat transfer characteristics are obtained by using relatively simple and economical fabrication techniques.