Transient Convection Thermal Analysis of Heat Exchanger Using Ansys Software Package

Abstract A heat exchanger (cooling fin) made of an aluminum alloy with thermal properties of 170W/mK isotropic thermal conductivity, 870J/kgK specific heat and 2800kg/m3 density was analyzed with Transient Thermal system from ANSYS software package. Additional conditions were ambient temperature and Film coefficient of 20 °C and 30W/m2 °C respectively. The initial (room) temperature of the alloy was set at 20 °C, heat source temperature of 90 °C, step end time 200s, initial time step 2s, minimum time step 0.2s and maximum time step at 20s. As the cooling process continues, it was observed that while at a time of 33.537s the temperature at fin-base juncture (probe 2) assumed a steady state and becomes uniform from 132.17s until the maximum time (200s) where the temperature increased to 89.114 °C, the tip of the base without fin (probe 3) assumed a steady state at a time of 37.83s and becomes uniformly distributed from 152.17s until the maximum time where the maximum temperature was 89.321 °C. It was also observed that no other part attained or exceeded 90 °C.

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Updated: June 25, 2023 — 2:40 pm