Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Cryogenics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cryogenics

Effect of ow maldistribution and axial conduction on compact

microchannel heat exchanger
Seungwhan Baek , Cheonkyu Lee 1, Sangkwon Jeong 2
Cryogenic Engineering Laboratory, #5119, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu,
Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 10 September 2013
Received in revised form 24 November 2013
Accepted 9 January 2014
Available online 20 January 2014
Keywords:
Heat exchanger
Axial conduction
Flow maldistribution
Microchannel
Cryogenic

a b s t r a c t
When a compact microchannel heat exchanger is operated at cryogenic environments, it has potential
problems of axial conduction and ow maldistribution. To analyze these detrimental effects, the heat
exchanger model that includes both axial conduction and ow maldistribution effect is developed in consideration of the microchannel heat exchanger geometry. A dimensionless axial conduction parameter (k)
is used to describe the axial conduction effect, and the coefcient of variation (CoV) is introduced to
quantify the ow maldistribution condition. The effectiveness of heat exchanger is calculated according
to the various values of the axial conduction parameter and the CoV. The analysis results show that the
heat exchanger effectiveness is insensitive when k is less than 0.005, and effectiveness is degraded with
the large value of CoV. Three microchannel heat exchangers are fabricated with printed circuit heat
exchanger (PCHE) technology for validation purpose of the heat exchanger model. The rst heat exchanger is a conventional heat exchanger, the second heat exchanger has the modied cross section to eliminate axial conduction effect, and the third heat exchanger has the modied cross section and the cross
link in parallel channel to mitigate ow maldistribution effect. These heat exchangers are tested in cryogenic single-phase, and two-phase environments. The third heat exchanger shows the ideal thermal characteristic, while the other two heat exchangers experience some performance degradation due to axial
conduction or ow maldistribution. The impact of axial conduction and ow maldistribution effects
are veried by the simulation results and compared with the experimental results.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Demand of high performance compact heat exchangers is
increasing for volume-limited cryogenic processes. The most representative example of the volume limited cryogenic process is
the natural gas liquefaction process for Liqueed Natural GasFloating Production Storage and Ofoading (LNG-FPSO).
The compact cryogenic liquefaction process inevitably requires
small components due to space limitation of a ship, as well as high
performance heat exchanger (e > 0.90 NTU > 10) for efcient operation. Microchannel heat exchangers satisfy these requirements.
First, the heat transfer area is increased due to small hydraulic
diameter of the channel, therefore, the area density is large within
same volume. Since the heat transfer coefcient is larger than that

Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 42 350 3079; fax: +82 42 350 8207.
E-mail addresses: s.baek@kaist.ac.kr (S. Baek), cheonkyu_lee@kaist.ac.kr (C. Lee),
skjeong@kaist.ac.kr (S. Jeong).
1
Tel.: +82 42 350 3079; fax: +82 42 350 8207.
2
Tel.: +82 42 350 3039; fax: +82 42 350 8207.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cryogenics.2014.01.003
0011-2275/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

of macrochannel in laminar ow, the higher effectiveness can be

achieved within small volume of heat exchanger.
A design method of compact microchannel heat exchanger for
cryogenic environment is not different from that of conventional
heat exchanger. When designing a high effectiveness heat exchanger, however, one must consider some particular problems such as
ow maldistribution and axial conduction effects that are not
commonly treated in conventional heat exchangers [1]. The ow
maldistribution occurs when a heat exchanger is composed of bundles of parallel channels. Since a microchannel heat exchanger
does have parallel channels, therefore, the ow maldistribution
problem should be considered. Moreover, the axial conduction
problem appears when large temperature difference exists in a single heat exchanger. Compact (short) heat exchangers are usually
accompanied with larger temperature gradient than conventional
(long) heat exchangers due to small geometry. Axial conduction
effect, therefore, is not negligible, but sometimes critical for its
thermal performance.
The ow maldistribution problems have been treated in various
counter-ow heat exchanger geometries. Because actual ow distribution is hard to measure, some simplied ow maldistribution

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S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

Nomenclature
A
B
C
cp
Dh
G
h
k
L
_
m
N
NTU
Nu
P
q
Re
S
t
T
th
U

area, m2
bias error
heat capacity rate, W/K
heat capacity, J/kg K
hydraulic diameter, m
mass ux, kg/m2 s
heat transfer coefcient, W/m2 K
thermal conductivity, W/m K
length of heat exchanger, m
mass ow rate, kg/s
number of channels, number of data
number of transfer units
Nusselt number
precision error
heat transfer rate, W
Reynolds number
standard deviation of data
T-distribution for a condence level
temperature, K
thickness of separator, m
heat transfer conductance, W/m2 K

conditions have been assumed with the heat exchanger geometry.

Fleming [2] and Jung [3,4] have investigated ow maldistribution
effect in plate type heat exchanger geometry. Their studies have
assumed that the ow distribution on one side is uniformly distributed, and the other side is not. The fraction of FL is introduced to
dene the degree of ow maldistribution, where FL indicates the
percentage of layer with lower-than-average ow. Rao [5] investigated the effectiveness loss due to ow maldistribution in conventional plate heat exchangers. The ow distribution prole in U and
Z type plate type heat exchanger header is used, and the effectiveness is calculated analytically. Pacio and Dorao [6] considered the
impact of ow maldistribution in a shell and tube heat exchanger
geometry, and assumed that the ow maldistribution occurs in
cylindrical layers. However, the ow maldistribution in microchannel heat exchanger geometry has not been carefully treated
yet.
Axial conduction problem in heat exchangers have been studied
by many researchers. Among those researchers, Kroeger [7] solved
e-NTU relation analytically, and Nellis [8] investigated axial conduction in counterow heat exchanger numerically. Since these
heat exchanger models were composed with only one hot and cold
channels, the ow maldistribution problem was not considered.
None of the preceding researchers studied the coupled problem
of ow maldistribution and axial conduction effects at the same
time in the heat exchanger. The objective of this study is to quantify the ow maldistribution and axial conduction effect simultaneously in the microchannel heat exchanger. The method to
mitigate ow maldistribution and axial conduction are proposed,
and the performance improvement is measured experimentally
in microchannel heat exchangers.

2. Heat exchanger modeling

2.1. Heat exchanger model with axial conduction effect
The one dimensional counterow heat exchanger model including axial conduction effect is rst developed by using MATLAB
[8,9]. The model is composed with the hot uid channel, the cold
uid channel, and the metal separator as displayed in Fig. 1. The
governing equations are developed from the energy balance of

axial position, m

Greek

a
e

aspect ratio of square channel

effectiveness
dimensionless axial conduction parameter
average value or viscosity
standard deviation
nondimensional temperature

Subscript
c
h
ideal
in
max
min
MR
out
w

cold uid
hot uid
ideal condition
inlet
maximum
minimum
mixed refrigerant
outlet
wall or wall cross sectional area

l
r

the uid streams and the metal separator, as equations from (1)
(3).



dT h
hh Ah;HT
T h  T w

dx
L



dT c
hc Ac;HT
T w  T c

dx
L



d
dT w
dT
dT
_ h cp;h h  m
_ c cp;c c
m
k w Aw
dx
dx
dx
dx

_ h cp;h
m

_ c cp;c
m

Since the numerical scheme of heat exchanger model is fully explained in the literature [9], the important assumptions are only
highlighted in this paper. The model inputs are as followings:
constant heat transfer coefcients (hh, hc) on both sides
thickness (thw) and constant thermal conductivity (kw) of the
wall (or separator)
mass ow rate (mh,mc) on both sides
inlet temperature (Th,in, Tc,in) on both sides
constant heat capacity (cp,h, cp,c) on both sides
The pressure drop in the microchannel is neglected in this
study. The output results from the heat exchanger model are the
temperature prole in the heat exchanger. The heat transfer coefcients and heat capacity values on both streams are assumed to
have constant values. The number of transfer unit (NTU) is dened
as the following equation.

NTU

UAHT
_ p min
mc

The thermal resistance of metal separator between hot and cold

uids is neglected. Therefore, the overall heat conductance is dened with only the local heat transfer coefcients and the heat
transfer area, excluding the thermal resistance of the metal separator, as the following equation.

1
1
1

UAHT hh Ah;HT hc Ac;HT

The effectiveness of heat exchanger is calculated with the following equation

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S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

Fig. 1. Heat exchanger geometry used in numerical simulation of a simple counterow heat exchanger.

q
qmax

The developed heat exchanger model is validated in advance

with Kroegers analytic solution [7] according to the dimensionless
axial conduction parameter k. The k is dened with heat exchanger
length (L), cross sectional area of wall (Aw), thermal conductivity of
wall (kw) and heat capacity rate (C) as the following equation.

T  T c;in
T h;in  T c;in

x

x
L

The reason of effectiveness decrease due to high k is the large

temperature gap phenomena at the inlet and the outlet of heat

1.00

Analytic solution
=0.0002
=0.0022
=0.0043
=0.0217
=0.1085

0.90

Numerical solution
=0.0002
=0.0022
=0.0043
=0.0217
=0.1085

0.85

0.80
5

0.8

0.6

Fig. 2 displays the comparison between e-NTU relation of Kroegers analytic solution and numerical solution with various values
of k in balanced ow condition (Ch = Cc) and constant properties.
The numerical solution accurately predicts the analytical solution
over the entire range of NTU and k. The effectiveness degradation
at the same NTU value is also observed in Fig. 2; the effectiveness
is dramatically decreased when k has higher values than 0.005.
Fig. 3 shows the temperature prole of hot/cold uids and the
metal separator in the heat exchanger when k = 0.2. The nondimensional temperature and heat exchanger is used to describe
the temperature prole in the heat exchanger as the following
equations,

0.95

Hot
Wall
Cold

0.4

kw Aw
LC min

Effectiveness ()

1.0

10

15

20

25

30

NTU
Fig. 2. Effectiveness predicted by the numerical model as a function of NTU for
different values of k compared with Kroegers analytical solution.

0.2

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

x*
Fig. 3. Temperature proles of uids and metal separator (k = 0.1, NTU = 8).

exchanger. The metal separator receives heat from the hot uid,
however, not all of the heat is transferred to the cold uid. Heat
is partially transferred through the metal plate in axial direction.
Therefore, the outlet temperature shows the degraded values,
resulting in the effectiveness loss. When a compact heat exchanger
is designed for cryogenic purpose, it is very important to have low
k by controlling the length of heat exchanger, and the cross sectional area of heat exchanger body.
2.2. Heat exchanger model with axial conduction and ow
maldistribution effect
Before the ow maldistribution effect on the heat exchanger
performance is considered, it is important to dene the specic
ow maldistribution condition in microchannel heat exchanger.
Fig. 4 displays the typical structure of counterow heat exchanger
with microchannels. The horizontally parallel channels are installed on one layer, and another set of horizontally parallel
channels are installed on the different layer. Four major ow maldistribution conditions can be assumed with the header conguration of heat exchanger, as displayed in Fig. 5. When the inlet pipe is
installed in perpendicular direction, the channel near the inlet pipe
will have higher mass ow rate (Fig. 5a and c, linear weighted condition). When the inlet pipe is installed in axial direction, the mass
ow rate at the center channels has higher values than the side
channels (Fig. 5b and d, center weighted condition).
To simulate these ow maldistribution condition, two kinds of
counterow heat exchanger models are developed; the vertical
and the horizontal heat exchanger model. These heat exchanger
models are developed based on the simple counterow heat
exchanger model (Fig. 6a). The vertical heat exchanger model

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S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

Fig. 6c displays the schematic of horizontal heat exchanger

model. The difference with the vertical heat exchanger model is
that the uid set is expanded in the horizontal direction. The second pair of uid set is situated on the right side of the rst pair
of the uid set. Between each uid, the separating wall is located.
The walls are located between every hot and hot uids and hot and
cold uids to simulate multichannel effects. The energy balance
equations are added for the each uid and the separating wall as
the vertical heat exchanger model. For example, the energy balance
equation for the hot uid 2 in Fig. 6c can be written as the following equation.

_ h2 cp;h2
m

Fig. 4. Typical microchannel counterow heat exchanger conguration.



dT h2
hh2 Ah;HT

T h2  T w3
dx
L




hh2 Ah;HT
hh2 Ah;HT
T h2  T w4 

L
L
 T h2  T w5

12

The energy balance equation for the separating walls are identical with Eq. (11) except the description of adjacent walls. As
the vertical heat exchanger model, when the number of uid pair
is given, the number of energy balance equations for uids and
walls are added and modied.
The effect of ow maldistribution can be simulated by assuming
different mass ow rate at each channel. Table 1 summarizes the
linear weight ow-mal distribution condition, and Table 2 shows
the center weighted ow maldistribution condition for the three
uid pair heat exchanger models. The mass ow rate of hot side
is distorted, and the cold side mass ow rate is kept uniform as
the preceding studies [2,3]. To dene the degree of ow maldistribution, the coefcient of variation (CoV) is introduced. The CoV is
dened as the following equation.

PN
2
standard deviation r
CoV

average l

Fig. 5. Various ow maldistribution cases regarding header conguration: (a)

horizontally linear weighted condition, (b) horizontally center weighted condition,
(c) vertically linear weighted condition and (d) vertically center weighted condition.

_ c1 cp;c
m





dT c1
hc1 Ac;HT
hc1 Ac;HT
T c1  T w1 

dx
L
L
 T c1  T w2


m

13

PN

_
i1 mi T i;out
PN
_
i1 mi

14

The heat transfer coefcients at each channel is assumed to

be identical regardless of the mass ow rate. This assumption
is particularly valid for microchannel heat exchanger, where
the ow regime is laminar and the Nusselt number is constant
[3]. The total number of transfer unit (NTU) is dened as Eq.
(4). The effect of ow maldistribution to effectiveness is calculated in two heat exchanger models with different degree of ow
maldistribution.
3. Simulation results

10
3.1. Impact of ow maldistribution

The energy balance equations of additional walls are also

considered. For example, the energy balance of the Wall 2, which
is located between cold uid 1 and hot uid 2 in Fig. 6b can be
written as the following equation.



d
dT w2
dT
dT
_ c1 cp;c1 c1 m
_ h2 cp;h2 h2
m
kw Aw
dx
dx
dx
dx

_ i m

m

The CoV can vary from 0 to very large positive values, and zero
value of CoV indicates the ideally distributed ow condition. The
inlet temperatures are assumed to be identical, and the mean outlet temperatures are dened as the following equation.

T out
consists of hot and cold channels located alternatively. The separating walls are situated between the hot and cold uid channels.
Fig. 6b displays the schematic of vertical heat exchanger model.
The governing equation for the each stream is modied from Eqs.
(1) and (2). From the cold uid 1, the uid encounters two separating walls upward and downward. The heat transfer rate from the
additional wall should be considered in the uid energy balance
as the following equation.

i1

11

The number of walls are also determined when the number of

uid pair is given. Eqs. (10) and (11) are added and modied for
the additional uid pairs and separating walls.

The impact of ow maldistribution can be identied with the

temperature proles in the heat exchanger. The dotted lines in
Fig. 7a are the average temperature proles in the horizontal heat
exchanger model with balanced ow condition (C = 1). When the
ow is distributed ideally, the temperature proles of hot and cold
uids are linear (the dash lines in Fig. 7a); however, the temperature proles are curved (the solid lines in Fig. 7a) when there is
ow maldistribution. Moreover, the outlet temperatures are
degraded as a result of poor heat exchange. Fig. 7b shows the

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S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

Fig. 6. (a) the simple counter ow heat exchanger model, (b) vertical heat exchanger model: the ow channels are located up and down alternatively, and (c) horizontal heat
exchanger model: the ow channels are located in the right or left side simultaneously.

(a) 1.0

Table 1
Linear weighted ow mal-distribution conditions.
CoV

mh1 (%)

m2 (%)

mh3 (%)

0.8

Ideal
Case 1
Case 2
Case 3
Case 4

0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8

100.0
124.5
149.0
173.5
198.0

100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0

100.0
75.5
51.0
26.5
2.0

0.6

Hot-Ideal
Cold-Ideal
Hot-Flow mal
Cold-Flow mal

Cases

0.4

0.2
Table 2
Center weighted ow maldistribution conditions.
Cases

CoV

mh1 (%)

mh2 (%)

m3 (%)

Ideal
Case 5
Case 6
Case 7
Case 8

0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8

100
85.8
71.5
57.5
43.0

100
128.3
157.0
185.0
214.0

100
85.85
71.5
57.5
43.0

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

1.0

Hot 1=190%
Hot 2=100%
Hot 3=10%
Cold 1=100%
Cold 2=100%
Cold 3=100%

(b) 1.0
0.8

0.6

temperature prole at each channel of the parallel heat exchanger.

The hot channel 1 has excessive mass ow rate, which has a large
capacity ow rate, accordingly the temperature does not decrease
as much as expected. The hot channel 3 has insufcient mass ow
rate, having low capacity ow rate, its temperature drastically decreases at the inlet of the heat exchanger. However, the outlet
average temperature is mainly dominated by the excessive mass
ow rate channel, resulting in the degradation of heat exchanger
performance.
The simulation is continued to observe the effectiveness loss at
different NTU values. Fig. 8a shows the e-NTU relation in horizontal
heat exchanger model, when the mass ow rate is concentrated at
one side of heat exchanger (linear weighted condition). Fig. 8b
shows e-NTU relation when the mass ow rate is concentrated at
the center channels (center weighted). Comparison of the two
results indicate that the effectiveness loss is greater when the mass
ow rate is concentrated at one side of heat exchanger.
Fig. 9a and b display the e-NTU relation in the vertical heat
exchanger model with two ow maldistribution conditions. The

0.8

x*

0.4

0.2

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

x*
Fig. 7. (a) Average temperature prole of hot and cold uid in the horizontal heat
exchanger (Perfect case and ow maldistribution case). (b) Temperature prole of
three hot and three cold uids (ow maldistribution case).

effectiveness loss due to ow maldistribution in the vertical heat

exchanger model is greater when the ow rate is concentrated at
one side of heat exchanger as the horizontal heat exchanger model.

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S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

(a) 1.00

Horizontal heat exchanger

Linear weighted

Vertical heat exchanger

Linear weighted

0.95

Effectiveness ()

Effectiveness ()

(a) 1.00

0.90

Ideal
Case 2: CoV=0.2
Case 3: CoV=0.4
Case 4: CoV=0.6
Case 5: CoV=0.8

0.85

10

15

20

25

0.90

Ideal
Case 1: CoV=0.2
Case 2: CoV=0.4
Case 3: CoV=0.6
Case 4: CoV=0.8

0.85

0.80

0.80
5

0.95

30

10

15

NTU

(b) 1.00

25

30

Vertical heat exchanger

Center weighted

Horizontal heat exchanger

Center weighted
0.95

0.95

Effectiveness ()

Effectiveness ()

(b) 1.00

20

NTU

0.90

Ideal
Case 6: CoV=0.2
Case 7: CoV=0.4
Case 8: CoV=0.6
Case 9: CoV=0.8

0.85

10

15

20

25

Ideal
Case 7: CoV=0.4
Case 8: CoV=0.6
Case 9: CoV=0.8

0.85

0.80

0.80
5

0.90

30

10

15

20

25

30

NTU

NTU

The amount of absolute degradation with identical CoV value,

however, is larger than that of horizontal heat exchanger model.
In overall, the effectiveness degradation is insensitive when CoV
is lower than 0.2 in both heat exchanger models.
The above results assert that it is better to install a header at the
center of the parallel channels, and it is important to avoid ow
maldistribution over the vertical (laminating) direction of microchannel heat exchanger.
The e-NTU relation at different heat capacity ratio is also calculated by changing the heat capacity value of one stream. Fig. 10
shows the result of effectiveness ratio with various heat exchanger
operating conditions. The effectiveness ratio is dened with the
effectiveness with the ideal ow distribution condition, as the following equation.

Fig. 9. (a) e-NTU relation at linear weighted ow-mal distribution condition in

vertical heat exchanger model (C  1; k  0; 3 pairs) (b) e-NTU relation at center
weighted ow-mal distribution condition in vertical heat exchanger model
(C  1; k  0; 3 pairs).

1.02
1.01
1.00

/0

Fig. 8. (a) e-NTU relation at linear weighted ow-mal distribution condition in

horizontal heat exchanger model (C  1; k  0; 3 pairs), (b) e-NTU relation at center
weighted ow-mal distribution condition in horizontal heat exchanger model
(C  1; k  0; 3 pairs).

0.99

C*=1

0.98

C*=0.8
C*=0.6

0.97

C*=0.4
0.96

C*=0.2

0.95
5

10

15

20

25

30

NTU

eratio

e
eideal

15

The effectiveness degradation due to ow maldistribution is

clearly observed when the heat capacity rate ratio has a value near
1. The heat capacity rate ratio of cryogenic processes is near 1. For
example, a helium recuperation process has C = 1, and a mixed
refrigerant Joule Thomson process has C  0.9. Then, the thermal
performance of a heat exchanger or a system is supposed to be
strongly dependent on the ow maldistribution condition. If the
ow maldistribution condition, such as CoV value at the inlet, is
found at the header, the more accurate heat exchanger performance estimation is possible.

Fig. 10. e-NTU relation with various operating conditions at ow maldistribution

condition, calculated with the horizontal heat exchanger model (CoV = 0.48, k  0).

3.2. Impact of ow maldistribution and number of channels

The heat exchanger model is capable to simulate the arbitrary
number of channels. The effectiveness degradation is observed
with the different number of channels. Fig. 11 indicates the linear
weighted ow distribution proles in the 3, 5, 11, and 21 channels.
The slopes of ow distribution prole are little different each other,
however, the CoV values are identical. The four horizontal heat

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S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

exchanger models are examined, which have 3, 5, 11 and 21 pairs

of hot and cold uid channels, with the ow distribution prole
indicated in Fig. 11.
Fig. 12 displays the e-NTU relation of four different heat
exchangers at identical CoV value. As seen from the gure, the
effectiveness degradation is intensied when the heat exchanger
has more channels. When the number of channels are increased,
the uid outlet temperatures are determined with relatively larger
mass ow rate channels (Eq. (14)). It brings the degradation of outlet temperatures, resulting amplied effectiveness degradation of
the multichannel heat exchanger.
3.3. Impact of ow maldistribution and axial conduction
In the previous section, the dimensionless axial conduction
parameter (k) is assumed to be zero. It is certain that the heat exchanger model developed in this study is capable of simulating
both ow maldistribution and the axial conduction effect. The next
calculation is meaningful in that these two effects are simultaneously considered. Fig. 13a shows the temperature proles at
every channels in the vertical heat exchanger model. The large axial conduction parameter of k = 0.37 is simulated, and also ow

maldistribution condition is applied in this result. The temperature

jump phenomena at the heat exchanger inlet and outlet is observed, moreover, the different temperature prole of each channel
is observed in Fig. 13a. When these two effects are coupled, the
thermal performance is degraded even more. Fig. 13b displays
the e-NTU relation regarding to the CoV and the axial conduction
parameter. The effectiveness loss is amplied when two effects occur together.
3.4. Mitigation of ow maldistribution problem
The effect of ow maldistribution was quantied in the analysis
of the previous section to reveal the thermal performance degradation of heat exchanger. It is a very important engineering task to
mitigate the ow maldistribution effect in order to operate a designed heat exchanger properly. In this paper, a ow redistribution
device inside the heat exchanger is proposed. The effect of ow
redistribution device is simulated with the heat exchanger model
by the spatially modied mass ow rate in the heat exchanger.
For example, if the ow redistribution device is installed at the rst
third length of the heat exchanger, the mass ow rate is recalculated at that position as the following equation

_ h1 1:4 g=s;m
_ h2 1:0 g=s;m
_ h3 0:6 g=s
at x 0 ! m
Linear weighted condition
180

% mass flow rate

160
140

16

_ h1 1:0 g=s;m
_ h2 1:0 g=s;m
_ h3 1:0 g=s
at x 1=4 ! m

The mass ow rate at each channels after the ow redistribution device is decided with the pressure drop of the ow redistribution device in actual condition. However, the mass ow rate at
each channels after the ow redistribution device is assumed to
be identical, because the pressure drop is neglected in this study.

21 channels: CoV=0.4
11 channels: CoV=0.4
5 channels: CoV=0.4
3 channels: CoV=0.4

120
100
80

(a) 1.0

60

0.8

NTU~8, ~50
Hot 1=160%
Hot 2=100%
Hot 3=40%

40
0.6

20
21 channels: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
11 channels: 1
5 channels: 1
2
3
4
5
3 channels: 1
2
3

0.4

Channel Number

Cold 1=100%
Cold 2=100%
Cold 3=100%

0.2

Fig. 11. The ow distribution proles at different heat exchangers with identical
CoV.

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

x*

(b) 1.00

1.00

Horizontal heat exchanger

Linear weighted

0.95

0.90

Ideal flow distribution, ~0

5 pairs, CoV=0.4, ~0
11 pairs, CoV=0.4, ~0
21 pairs, CoV=0.4, ~0

0.85

0.80

10

15

20

25

30

NTU
Fig. 12. e-NTU relation with different heat exchangers (5 pairs, 11 pairs, and 21
pairs). The performance degradation is intensied with the increase of the number
of channels.

Effectiveness ()

Effectiveness ()

0.95

~0, CoV=0
~0, CoV=0.6

0.90

0.85
=0.37, CoV=0
=0.37, CoV=0.6

0.80

10

15

20

25

30

NTU
Fig. 13. (a) Temperature prole in the horizontal heat exchanger when ow
maldistribution and axial conduction occur simultaneously. (b) Example of e-NTU
relation with axial conduction and ow maldistribution effect, (C = 1).

S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

(a) 1.00
Effectiveness ratio (/0)

Fig. 14 shows the temperature proles of the uids in the heat

exchanger with the ow redistribution device located at the hot
side. The temperature proles are very different from the result
of Fig. 7b after the x* = 1/4. The ow maldistribution occurs in three
hot channel inlets, which results in different temperature proles
at the inlet until the rst third part of the heat exchanger. When
the hot uids go through the ow redistribution device, the mass
ow rate at each channel becomes identical. Then, the temperature
proles overlap each other, which indicate that the ow redistribution device is effective to protect the thermal performance from
the ow maldistribution problem. The ow rates at two cold inlets
are ideally distributed, and show the overlapped temperature prole after the location of ow redistribution device. Due to the ow
maldistribution of the hot side, the temperature proles of the cold
uid diverge at their outlets.
It is evident that the ow redistribution device should be located near the uid inlet to mitigate the ow maldistribution effect
in the heat exchanger. Fig. 15 shows the performance improvement expressed by effectiveness ratio when the ow redistribution
device is installed at the rst tenth point of the heat exchanger.
Fig. 15a displays the effectiveness ratio over different NTU values
in the horizontal heat exchanger model, and Fig. 15b shows the
simulation results at the vertical heat exchanger model. Even
though the ow maldistribution does initially exist, performance
is almost recovered when CoV is low. When the ow maldistribution is severe (CoV = 0.8), the performance is recovered from 90% to
97% in terms of the effectiveness ratio at NTU of 20 in the vertical
heat exchanger model (Fig. 15b).

0.98

0.96

0.94

Horizontal heat exchanger model

~0, CoV=0.4,
~0, CoV=0.4 Redistribution @ 1/10th
~0, CoV=0.8
~0, CoV=0.8 Redistribution @ 1/10th

0.92

0.90
5

10

20

25

0.95

0.90

Vertical heat exchanger model

~0, CoV=0.4
~0, CoV=0.4, Redistribution @ 1/10th
~0, CoV=0.8
~0, CoV=0.8, Redistribution @ 1/10th

0.85

10

15

20

25

To validate the heat exchanger model discussed above, three

counterow microchannel heat exchangers are fabricated. The
microchannel heat exchangers are manufactured with printed
circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) fabrication process. The detailed
fabrication procedure of PCHE is explained in the preceding researches [10,11].
The PCHEs are composed of thin stainless steel plates (stainless
304) stacked together. Fig. 16 displays the fabrication components
of the PCHEs. There are two types of plates, the walls (or ow
dividers) and the channel layers. The ow dividers are 100 lm
thick plane plate to serve as a ow separator. The channel layers
are congured to have 22 rectangular shapes which are mostly
made by full etching of the plates. The size of channel is 300 lm
height and 400 lm wide. After stacking the dividers and the

Fig. 15. (a) Effectiveness ratio between ow maldistribution heat exchanger and
ow redistribution structured heat exchanger in horizontal heat exchanger model
(C  1; k  0; 3 pairs), and (b) effectiveness ratio between ow maldistribution
heat exchanger and ow redistribution structured heat exchanger in vertical heat
exchanger model (C  1; k  0; 3 pairs).

channel layers alternatively, diffusion bonding is carefully performed to make complete heat exchanger in a vacuum furnace.
These PCHEs are identically composed of 10 hot streams and 10
cold streams in a counter ow arrangement. The PCHE has core
dimensions of 220  77  8 mm3. Four 1/4 in. stainless steel tubes
are welded at each entrance of the ows as headers of the PCHE.
The heat exchanger model is capable of simulating both axial
conduction and ow maldistribution effects; accordingly, three
heat exchangers are fabricated to conrm these two effects.

1.0

Hot-1
Hot-2
Hot-3

Hot - Ideal
Cold - Ideal

0.6

0.4

Cold-1
Cold-2
Cold-3

0.2

Flow
mal-distribution Flow re-distribution device

0.0
0.0

0.2

30

NTU

4.1. Microchannel heat exchanger

0.8

30

(b) 1.00

0.80

4. Cryogenic heat exchanger experiments

15

NTU

Effectiveness ratio (/0)

56

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

x*
Fig. 14. Temperature prole with ow redistribution device in vertical heat
exchanger model with ow maldistribution condition.

Fig. 16. The schematic of fabricated PCHE components.

S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

Fig. 17 displays the fabricated three heat exchangers; PCHE-1,

PCHE-2 and PCHE-3. Although these heat exchangers have identical heat transfer area (identical channel geometry and number of
layers), small modications are expected to improve their thermal
performances. The PCHE-1 is a microchannel heat exchanger with
conventional fabrication technology. The PCHE-2 has the modied
heat exchanger cross section from the PCHE-1 by EDM wire cut to
increase the axial conduction length. The PCHE-3 has the modied
cross section and the ow redistribution device in channels. The
cross link between the parallel channels is selected as a ow redistribution device. There are several reports that cross link may improve ow distribution over the parallel channels [12,13]. It is
expected that the PCHE-3 will show the better performance than
PCHE-1 and PCHE-2.
All three heat exchangers have ow maldistribution at the
header, which conrmed by CFD analysis [14]. Fig. 18 shows the
header geometry for CFD analysis. The test geometry consists of
parallel microchannels, the space of the header, and the 5 mm ID
pipe attached to the header. The objective of CFD work is to nd
the horizontal and vertical ow distribution at the entrance of
the channels. The heat transfer is neglected in this analysis. The
inlet velocity at the 5 mm pipe is given as the inlet boundary condition, and the constant pressure at the parallel channel ends are as
given as the outlet boundary condition.
Fig. 19a and b shows the velocity streamlines at the fabricated
heat exchanger header and the velocity distribution at each channel when the 1 g/s of helium gas (300 K, 1500 kPa) is passing
through the test geometry. Fig. 19c displays velocity distribution
at each channel. The vertical ow distribution shows fairly ideal
distribution, however, the horizontal distribution shows center
weighted distribution, and its CoV value is 0.15. The consistent results are obtained when the inlet conditions are changed.
The specications of these three heat exchangers are shown in
Table 3. The PCHE-1 has shorter axial conduction length than the

57

PCHE-2 and 3, which means that it has higher axial conduction

parameter. The degree of ow maldistribution on all heat exchanger have the same value, however, the PCHE-3 is expected to have
a lower CoV value due to ow redistribution device in it.

4.2. Single phase experiments

Thermal performances of the PCHEs are experimentally measured in a cryogenic test facility as shown in Fig. 20. The experiments are performed between 300 K and 77 K. Compressed
helium gas (Genesis Vacuum Technology, Helium 2.1 compressor)
ows in the hot side of the heat exchanger. The gas is cooled by
liquid nitrogen (LN2) bath and then ows back to the cold side before returning to the compressor inlet. Four silicon diode thermometers (Lakeshore, DT-670SD) are attached to the surface of
inlet and outlet tubes of the heat exchanger to measure the ow
temperatures with respect to various mass ow rates. Four pressure transducers (SENSYS, PSH 30 bar) are also installed at each inlet and outlet for hot and cold ow streams. The mass ow rate is
controlled by a mass ow controller (Bronkhorst: In-Flow, Helium,
4000 slpm). Pressure and mass ow data are monitored utilizing
National Instruments Devices (SCXI-1000, SCXI-1125, and SCXI1328). Silicon diode thermometers are monitored by Lakeshore
Temperature Monitor model 218. All instrument data are then acquired by a computer utilizing LABVIEW software. In order to prevent heat loss and improve measurement accuracy during the
experiment, tests are conducted in a vacuum chamber.
The effectiveness is calculated by Eq. (6), using the enthalpy
values of the four inlet and outlets of the heat exchanger. The
enthalpy values are deduced from the measured temperature and
pressure using REFPROP 9 [15]. The NTU values of heat exchangers
are calculated with Eq. (4), and the single phase local heat transfer
coefcients are referred from the preceding literature [16].

Fig. 17. Fabricated three microchannel heat exchangers by PCHE technology (a) PCHE-1 (b) PCHE-2, and (c) PCHE-3.

58

S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

Fig. 18. The header geometry for the CFD analysis.

The uncertainty of measured data is determined with the following equation [17]. Table 4 shows the instrumentation errors
for the experimental setup. The experimental results show the
uncertainty around 1.5%.

s

2
S
U B2 t95%;v p
N1

17

Fig. 21 displays the effectiveness comparison results between

the simulation and the experiment. The physical properties of
the fabricated heat exchangers, such as the axial conduction
parameter (k), the degree of ow maldistribution (CoV) and number of channels are considered in the simulation results. The experimental results show the effectiveness improvement on the same
NTU value as predicted by the simulation results. As explained
above, the PCHE-1 has both axial conduction and ow maldistribution problems; therefore, the effectiveness shows the lowest value
among three heat exchangers. The PCHE-2 has eliminated the axial
conduction effect by increasing axial conduction length; the effectiveness shows higher value than the PCHE-1. Since the PCHE-3 has
eliminated both axial conduction and ow maldistribution effect,
the effectiveness is the greatest. Moreover, the calculated effectiveness values coincide with the experimental results.
The experiments are continued to observe the performance
improvement at cryogenic two phase condition.

4.3. Two-phase experiments

A mixed refrigerant Joule Thomson (MR-JT) process is used for
the representative example of cryogenic two phase ow condition.
Condensation takes place in the hot side of the heat exchanger, and
evaporation takes place in the cold side of the heat exchanger. The
important characteristic of MR-JT process is that the attainable
no-load temperature strongly depends on the heat exchangers

effectiveness [18]. The microchannel heat exchangers are tested

as the recuperator of the cryogenic MR-JT process.
Experimental setup is modied to test the MR-JT process with
the heat exchangers. Fig. 22 shows the schematic of experimental
setup for the MR-JT test. A helium compressor (Helix, CTI-8200) is
used to circulate the mixed refrigerants. The MR (Ar, R14, R23,
R218, R134a) is charged from each separate component bottles to
the compressor. The MR passes through the heat exchanger, and
when the MR goes through a JT expansion part, it creates low temperature. After passing through a heater, the MR enters the heat exchanger again. The MR from the heat exchanger goes back to the
compressor to be pressurized to constant high pressure. The mass
ow rate of the mixed refrigerant is measured by a mass ow meter
(Micromotion, CMF025 with 1700 transmitter) which is located between the compressor and the cold out ow of heat exchanger.
Temperature and pressure are measured at inlet/outlet tubes of
the heat exchanger as the previous experiment. The mixed refrigerant composition is measured with Gas Chromatography (Younglin,
GC6000) during the operation. The mixture in terms of mole fraction consists of 12% argon, 19% R14, 20% R23, 25% R218, and 24%
R134a. The MR-JT process is operated with 1500:400 kPa pressure
ratio. The mass ow rate of mixed refrigerant is kept as 1.2 g/s.
To ensure the experiments at identical conditions, the temperatures before and after expansion are compared. Fig. 23 shows the
result of the measured temperatures before and after expansion.
Two experimental results are found almost identical. From this
comparison, we can conrm that the mixed refrigerant composition and the pressure ratio are kept identical in two experiments.
The only difference is the achieved minimum temperature. It is
sure that the ow maldistribution is mitigated in PCHE-3; therefore the lower no-load temperature is obtained.
Fig. 24 shows the e-NTU relation of experimental and
simulation results. For the estimation of NTU of heat exchanger,
the fully-developed laminar ow is assumed based on the linear
friction factor characteristic at low Reynolds number [10]. The

59

S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

(c)

Velocity (m/s)

5
4
3
2

Horizontal direction (Line A) CoV=0.15

Vertical direction (Line B) CoV=0.04

1
0
Horizontal
Vertical

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Channel Number
Fig. 19. Velocity streamlines at the fabricated heat exchanger header (a) upper view, (b) side view, and (c) velocity distribution at specic locations.

Table 3
Specications of fabricated heat exchanger.
Specication

PCHE-1

PCHE-2

PCHE-3

Hydraulic diameter (Dh)

Total heat transfer area (AHT)
Total ow area (Aow)
Total axial conduction area (Acond)
Axial conduction length (L)
Axial conduction parameter (k)
Horizontal CoV of velocity

340 lm
0.2024 m2
2.64  105 m2
6.21  104 m2
0.2 m
0.020
0.15

340 lm
0.2024 m2
2.64  105 m2
1.55  104 m2
0.55 m
0.001
0.15

340 lm
0.2024 m2
2.64  105 m2
1.55  104 m2
0.55 m
0.001
0

calculated Reynolds number based on averaged physical property

(Eq. (18)) shows around 80.

Re

GDh
l

18

For the better estimation of NTU, the local heat transfer

coefcients must be veried to calculate the overall heat transfer
coefcient. In this case, the two-phase condensation heat transfer
coefcient is required for the high pressure stream, and the
two-phase evaporation heat transfer coefcient is required for

60

S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

Compressor

Helium
Compressor
Liquid nitrogen
Supply

Return

Supply

Supply

Mass flow meter

P1, T1
Hot in

MFC

LN2
Bath

Test
PCHE

Expansion
device

P3, T4
Cold In

P2, T2
Hot out

Vacuum
Chamber
Fig. 22. Experimental setup to measure heat exchanger effectiveness in cryogenic
two phase ow environment (mixed refrigerant Joule Thomson process).

Vacuum
Chamber
Fig. 20. Experimental setup to measure heat exchanger effectiveness in cryogenic
single phase environment.

Measurement

Number

Error

Note

Temperature
Pressure
Mass ow rate
Gas chromatography

4
4
1
1

0.1 K
0.5%
0.5%
1%

(Surface mount)

Total uncertainty

1.5%

300

Temperature after expansion (K)

Table 4
The instrument errors for the experimental setup.

280

Experimental
PCHE-3
PCHE-2
PCHE-1

PCHE-2 (experimental)
PCHE-3 (experimental)
Temperature before/after (calculation)

260
240
220
200
180
160
160

1.00

180

200

220

240

260

280

300

Temperature before expansion (K)

Fig. 23. Comparison of temperature before/after expansion for two experiment
results.

0.90

1.00

0.85
Numerical
~0.001, CoV=0
~0.001, CoV=0.15, Horizontal, 22 pairs, center weighted
~0.020, CoV=0.15, Horizontal, 22 pairs, center weighted

0.80
5

10

15

20

25

30

NTU
Fig. 21. Comparison of experimental effectiveness with simulation e-NTU results in
various NTU values (C = 1).

Effectiveness ()

Effectiveness ()

T3 : Cold end

T,P
Cold In

T,P
Hot out

0.95

P4, T5
Cold Out

HEX

T,P
Cold Out

T,P
Hot in

Return

Experimental
PCHE-3
PCHE-2
0.98
PCHE-1 (Expected)
0.96

0.94

0.92

C*=0.98

Numerical
~0.001, CoV=0
~0.001, CoV=0.15
(Horizontal, 22 pairs, Center weighted)
~0.020, CoV=0.15
(Horizontal, 22 pairs, Center weighted)

0.90

the low pressure stream. Although those two-phase heat transfer

correlations for the mixed refrigerant in the microchannel are
not well known, the two-phase Nusselt can be presumed based
on the experimental results from literatures at very small Reynolds
number. The Reynolds number in our experimental condition is
less than 100. The evaporation heat transfer coefcient measurement of cryogenic mixed refrigerant results from Nellis [19]
indicate that the Nusselt number converges to small number at
very small Reynolds number. The several evaporative heat transfer
correlations also indicate that the low Nusselt number is calculated

20

40

NTU
Fig. 24. Comparison of experimental effectiveness with simulation e-NTU results in
various NTU values (C = 0.98).

at very small Reynolds number [20]. Moreover, the condensation

heat transfer coefcient in the microchannel at extremely low
mass ux shows also small values [21]. Therefore, the two phase
local heat transfer coefcients are estimated using Eq. (19), which

S. Baek et al. / Cryogenics 60 (2014) 4961

is the Nusselt number for the fully developed laminar ow in the

square duct [22].

hDh
Nu 
kMR
7:5411  2:61a 4:97a2  5:119a3 2:702a4  0:548a5
19
where the a is the aspect ratio of the square duct.
The average thermal conductivity of the mixed refrigerant is
calculated with REFPROP 9, and then NTU values are estimated.
The calculated NTU shows the value around 30. The heat capacity
rate ratio (C) is 0.98 in the given operating condition. The effectiveness value from the experiments is calculated by the measured
temperature and pressure conditions. Note that the experimental
results include uncertainties in both NTU and effectiveness.
It is certain in Fig. 24 that the PCHE-3 shows the higher effectiveness than that of PCHE-2 on similar NTU values. Because
PCHE-3 has ow redistribution device in the heat exchanger, ow
maldistribution effect must be mitigated. The effectiveness values
deduced from the experimental results indicate that the two-phase
ow maldistribution exists in PCHE-2, but resolved in PCHE-3,
which is also veried by numerical simulations.
5. Conclusion
The heat exchanger model that includes axial conduction and
ow maldistribution effect is developed in this paper. The dimensionless axial conduction parameter (k) and ow maldistribution
coefcient (CoV) are used to describe axial conduction effect and
the ow maldistribution condition. The heat exchanger effectiveness is specically calculated based on k and CoV. The effectiveness
is degraded with high values of k and CoV. The heat exchanger
geometry modication is one solution to have low axial conduction
effect. The thermal performance degradation due to ow maldistribution effect can be mitigated by ow redistribution device inside
the heat exchanger.
The microchannel heat exchangers are fabricated to examine
the geometry effect on axial conduction and ow maldistribution.
The modied geometry in the heat exchanger successfully diminishes axial conduction and ow maldistribution problems, which
resultantly increase effectiveness values.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Power Generation & Electricity
Delivery of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation

61

and Planning (KETEP) Grant funded by the Korea government Ministry of Knowledge Economy (No. 2011101050002B).
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