SKMM 3443

HEAT TRANSFER PROJECT

NAME : MUHAMMAD UZAIR BIN GHULAM HUSSAIN

Heat exchanger is a mechanical device made to transfer or exchange the heat between the two
fluids which in different temperatures. Without mixing the two fluids, the exchange of heat in a heat
exchanger still can be done. It is used in both cooling and heating process. There are many applications
of the heat exchangers such as lowering down the temperature of car engine, HVAC system in a
household or buildings, power plants which produces power-generated product and chemical processing.
The fluid that is used to transfer heat could be a liquid such as oil, water or even moving air. There are
some types of heat exchangers which all are functioning the same that passing heat from one fluid to
another. Hence, different types of heat exchangers work in different ways depending on their applications
in the industry. The most famous products of heat exchanger used in the industry are shell-and-tube heat
exchanger, double pipe heat exchanger, plate heat exchanger, condensers, evaporators and boilers.

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 Figure 1: Flows in shell-and-tube heat exchanger

Figure 2: Flow configurations in standard heat exchanger

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Design Specification

Since the project requires an application of heat exchanger system that used to recover thermal
energy as an approach towards sustainability, so, the cooling system of radiator in internal combustion
engine which lower down the temperature of the engine is chosen as our design specifications. Basically,
the major components of the cooling system include coolant reservoir, radiator, radiator cap, thermostat,
throttle body, radiator fan, water pump, heater coil (extra features other than air-conditioning in the car)
and engine. The cooling system of radiator is compulsory in avoiding the engine from overheating. This
concept can be illustrated in figure 3 below: -

Figure 3: Radiator in engine system

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Applications

Radiator which consists of aluminium mesh and in this aluminium device, there are tubes that run
parallel through it all the way down. At the inlet, hot coolant enters and exit the tubes with cold coolant at
the outlet. This is happening when the air passes through the radiator perpendicularly. Since aluminium
has high thermal conductivity where it takes heat very quickly, aluminium fins attached to the tubes will be
cooled by the air passing through them and so, the coolant is becoming cooler at the outlet and enters the
engine again. When the engine started, the coolant running through it will be getting higher in
temperature. The coolant then being transferred to the radiator to eliminate heat and the coolant which is
cooled down is then pumped back into the engine by water pump. For additional features which is heater,
a valve needs to be opened by the driver where the fan will blow the hot coolant and the hot temperature
will be occupying inside of the car. Again, the cooled down coolant is then pumped back into the engine
by water pump. Besides that, the most major part is the radiator cap. Even though this component looks
simple, but it is the most critical component in this system. A radiator cap at fault could lead to coolant
leakage, overflowing reservoir, radiator hose collapses and overheated engine.

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Figure 4: Radiator Cooling fin

Figure 5: Radiator Cap

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Effectiveness of Heat Exchanger

Effectiveness can be calculated by using the formulas below:-

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Ways to Improve the Performance

1) Dimension of radiator – High surface area which is taller, wider and thinner will contributed a lot in
eliminating heat from the coolant.

2) Fin density – Higher density of fins will allow greater cooling.

3) Number of passes in radiator – Higher number of passes will lead to greater cooling.

4) Material of radiator – Even though copper has higher rate of heat transfer, aluminium still have
more benefits such as lighter and stronger. Because of it is stronger, we can make the tubes
thinner and could increase the heat transfer.

5) Fan speed – In case the car is in static condition, there is no natural air or known as natural
convection coming in towards the surface of radiator. Hence, higher fan speed is required as
forced convection to replace the ambient air.

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Conclusion
As conclusion, the knowledge of heat transfer is very important since it could be implemented to new
technologies or applications in daily lives. As discussed above, it is proven that the cooling system of
radiator in internal combustion engine is one of the successful research from heat transfer knowledge
implemented on existing technologies in making them a better product.

References
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