ABSTRACT
220This study presents a mathematical model which is developed for the simulation of gasketed plate heat exchanger (PHE) with general configuration and operating at steady state. The purpose of developing this type of model is to study the influence of the configuration on the exchanger performance for rigorous configuration selection. A mathematical model of PHE in steady state yields a linear system of first order ODE comprising of the energy balance for each channel and required boundary condition. The objective is to make a numerical simulation program which acts as a tool to examine the combined effect of most of the geometrical parameter on the operation of the PHE and to check to what extent, each of these parameters affects the momentum and heat transfer rate. In this effort, the simulation work is based on RK-4 numerical approach for the system of ODE-45 and finite difference method numerical approach, developed in MATLAB. For the entire study, the results show the little influence over the main simulation result over the heat exchanger (thermal effectiveness, pressure drop, and outlet temperature of process fluid) as far as overall heat transfer coefficient (U) is concerned.
