Comparative design study of a diesel exhaust gas heat exchanger for truck applications with conventional and state of the art heat transfer enhancements

The exhaust gas of heavy duty diesel engines can provide an important heat source that may be used in a number of ways to provide additional power and improve overall engine efficiency. The sizing of a heat exchanger that can manage the heat load and still be of reasonable size and weight without excessive pressure drop is of significant importance especially for truck applications. This is the subject of the present work. To approach the problem, a total of five different configurations are investigated and a comparison of conventional and state of the art heat transfer enhancement technologies is included. Two groups of configurations are examined: (a) a classical shell and tube heat exchanger using staggered cross-flow tube bundles with smooth circular tubes, finned tubes and tubes with dimpled surfaces and (b) a cross-flow plate heat exchanger, initially with finned surfaces on the exhaust gas side and then with 10 ppi and 40 ppi metal foam material substituting for the fins. Calculations were performed, using established heat exchanger design methodologies and recently published data from the literature to size the aforementioned configurations. The solutions provided reduce the overall heat exchanger size, with the plate and fin type consisting of plain fins presenting the minimum pressure drop (up to 98% reduction compared to the other configurations), and the 40 ppi metal foam being the most compact in terms of size and weight. Durability of the solutions is another issue which will be examined in a future investigation. However, coupling of the exhaust heat exchanger after a particulate trap appears to be the most promising solution to avoid clogging from soot accumulation

Experimental study of the interactions between long and short-term unsteady heat transfer responses on the in-cylinder and exhaust manifold diesel engine surfaces

The paper presents the results from the analysis of an experimental investigation with the aim to provide insight to the cyclic, instantaneous heat transfer phenomena occurring in both the cylinder head and exhaust manifold wall surfaces of a direct injection (DI), air-cooled diesel engine. The mechanism of cyclic heat transfer is investigated during engine transient events, viz. after a sudden change in engine speed and/or load, both for the combustion chamber and exhaust manifold surfaces. These results are then compared with relevant experimental data from steady state operation which in the present case are used as reference helping to reveal any potential influences of each transient event on cyclic heat transfer. The experimental installation allowed both long- and short-term signal types to be recorded on a common time reference base during the transient event. Processing of experimental data was accomplished using a modified version of one-dimensional heat conduction theory with Fourier analysis, capable to cater for the special characteristics of transient engine operation. Based on this model, the evolution of local surface heat flux during a transient event was calculated. Two engine transient events are examined, which present a key difference in the way the load and speed changes are imposed on each one of them. From the analysis of experimental results it is confirmed that each thermal transient event consists of two distinguished phases the "thermodynamic" and the "structural" one which are appropriately configured and analyzed. In the case of a severe variation, in the first 20 cycles after the beginning of the transient event, the wall surface temperature amplitude on cylinder head was almost three times higher than the one observed at the "normal" temperature oscillations occurring during the steady state operation. At the same time, peak pressure values in the same cycles are increased by almost 15% above their corresponding values at the final steady state. The same phenomena are valid for the exhaust manifold surfaces but on a moderated scale.Heat transfer Unsteady Cyclic Diesel engine Transient operation Long and short-term response