Two-Dimensional Chemical Etching Process Simulation for Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger Channels Based on Cellular Automata Model

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2017

Publication Title

Heat Transfer Engineering

First page number:

1

Last page number:

13

Abstract

As a new type of heat exchanger, the printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) with high compactness can work under high pressure and high temperature, and can be applied to the very high temperature gas nuclear reactors. The chemical etching technology is one of main processes during PCHE fabrication, which determines whether PCHE flow channels can be properly produced according to design. However, many factors can affect the etching quality and the poor etching process can cause a great deal of uncertainty on the precision of stainless steel flow channels. In this paper, a two-dimensional (2-D) cellular automata model (CA) is used to simulate the etching process on stainless steel to examine the change of channel features varying with time under certain etching rates. Moreover, the simulation results are compared with our previous experimental etching data. On the one hand, from the comparison of the simulation results with channels data by spray etching, 2-D CA model can realize the simulation of etching process and display channel features under different etching rates and lateral erosion rates in every time period. On the other hand, from the comparison of the simulation results with channels data by immersion etching under different FeCl3 concentration and etching liquid temperature, 2-D CA model vividly presents channel features under different factors, which can easily and clearly explain the influence of factors on the etching quality, puddling effect and so on. Therefore, the simulation result strengthens the understanding of the etching mechanism and is helpful to realize an efficient and precise PCHE fabrication. © 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Language

english

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