Simplified modeling of complex heat exchanger systems

The goals of this paper are to develop and demonstrate an efficient modeling technique for the thermal analysis of compact heat exchangers for integration into more complex systems. The proposed simplified heat exchanger model can take advantage of an existing library of heat exchanger performance data, or alternatively, it can use existing heat exchanger performance curves. The ultimate utility of this methodology is to allow quick and accurate design decisions at system-level during package development by enabling the analyst to construct models and perform system-level thermal (and CFD) analyses in a matter of a few hours, rather than a few days (or weeks). The developed procedure has been demonstrated on a typical military aircraft electronics application, where the components are cooled by conduction of heat from the boards to "cold-plated" sidewalls. The proposed procedure is integrated into a thermal/CFD model of the above system. Heat transfer between the sidewall and the working fluid is modeled using a fluid network. Each section in the network denotes a heat exchanger section and is linked to a corresponding section of the coldplate through using the "UA" of the heat exchanger.