Investigation into optimum design of recuperator at a confirmed heat transfer area

This study aims to investigate the heat transfer characteristics of supercritical CO₂ when flowing through the printed circuit heat exchanger with Z type channel, and further guide the optimum design of recuperator at confirmed heat transfer area. Numerical simulation is used to analyze the local and overall heat transfer characteristics between CO₂ at two pressures. The heat transfer characteristics of a recuperator with typical structure are calculated at a typical working condition, and compared to the experimental results to check the computation model. Then, the heat transfer characteristics of the recuperator with the same heat transfer area but different channel structure are calculated. The effect law of the structure on heat transfer is explored. The study shows that the calculation results have good agreement with the experimental results. The heat transfer coefficient decreases the most when the channel included angle increases from 110° to 115°and the advised range is 110°−120° for different design requirements.