Liquid droplet heat exchanger studies

Abstract

Recent analytical and experimental investigations of the liquid droplet heat exchanger (LDHX) concept for space power applications are described. The performance of the LDHX is compared to that of a conventional heat exchanger for heat rejection applications in a Brayton cycle, using the mass-specific heat exchanger effectiveness as a figure of merit. It is shown that the LDHX has an order of magnitude advantage over the conventional heat exchanger. Furthermore, significant improvement in cycle efficiency and power to mass ratio is possible. Two-phase flow experiments in a laboratory scale LDHX, using air and water as the two media, show very good agreement with the quasi-one-dimensional model used in the parametric studies.