Computer Aided Design of Cross Flow Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for Grain Dryers

摘要

Heat exchangers constitute some of the most vital components in any heat transfer or drying operations. Designing and simulating heat exchangers are iterative methods and require a lot of numerical calculations. Hence, the process itself lends to computer aided design. With the wide availability of computers in the industry, engineers are in a position to adopt computer aided design techniques for solving design problems. Hence, there is a. need of suitable software to assist the designer. For actual engineering applications, many heat exchangers are designed using commercially available software such as those developed by computer service companies such as B-JAC International. However, these programs are application oriented and contain company related data. The present investigation aims at developing user-friendly software for the design of air-to-air cross flow heat exchangers for grain drying purposes. The software was developed in Microsoft Visual C++ platform, and it used the design procedure available in the literature (Kern, 1950), for rating problem for transverse fin (circular annular fins with triangular pitch) in cross flow heat exchangers. Its user-friendly input format made it an excellent tool for learning and preliminary design of cross flow air-to-air heat exchangers for grain drying purposes.