ABSTRACT
Monte Carlo method is especially suitable to evaluate measurement uncertainty of heat capacity Q and overall heat transfer coefficient k. Because their measurement models are nonlinear for heat exchangers, in the present work, an ordinary operating condition of the test data including flow, temperature, and pressure was chosen as the benchmark for a plate heat exchanger, and the Monte Carlo method was employed to produce 100000 groups of random operating conditions. The estimated values for Q and k by the Monte Carlo method were 0.78%, and 2.3% respectively less than those by GUM. The two methods both proved each other independently. But the measurement uncertainties by the former were 7.4 kW and 61 W/m2*K for Q and k, while those by the latter were 16 kW and 138 W/m2*K respectively. And the former were only 46.25% and 44.2% of the latter. In sum, the Monte Carlo method provides more accurate measurement uncertainty than GUM when each of the inputs is subject to the same uniform distribution.
