Woven wire gas-to-liquid heat exchanger

Gas-to-liquid heat exchangers lack in an adequate heat transfer coefficient on the gas side due to low convective heat transfer into the gas. Enhancing the heat transfer mechanism by increasing the surface area yields an improved heat transfer. Woven wire heat exchangers allow enlarging heat transfer surface area, decreasing material usage and the flexibility of different geometrical dimensions with the drawback of an increasing pressure drop. A further advantage of woven capillary-tube-and-wire structures is the possibility to combine the process of production of the mesh with contacting it to a tube. However studying heat transfer and hydraulics of woven capillary-tube-and-wire structures in experimental set-ups shows barriers in achieving good connection between wires and capillary tubes in first samplings. A medium heat transfer coefficient of 110 W/m²K for air velocities of 2 m/s with water as second fluid and stainless steel as solid structure can be achieved. Numerical simulations can reproduce the measurements and extended simulations of the same geometry, with less heat resistance between wires and tubes, yield a heat transfer coefficient of 330 W/m²K for a solid structure of 300 W/mK, showing the potential for wire structures as heat exchanger enhancer.